


Doubloons

by SunnyBlue



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Catwoman (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Becoming Brothers, Brotherly Bonding, Brothers, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Happy Ending, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jason Todd Lives, Jason Todd is Red Hood, Jason Todd is Robin, Tim Drake is Catlad | Stray, Tim Drake is So Done
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:08:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26058490
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunnyBlue/pseuds/SunnyBlue
Summary: Tim Drake is the Stray: snarky genius child and protege to Selina Kyle. His primary after-school activities consist of running around Gotham dressed as a cat, stealing shit from mob bosses, petting animals, and generally being an agent of mild chaos.Things get even more chaotic when a new Robin appears on the scene, unafraid of the world and eager to stop criminals like Tim.But who knows? They could become friends. And given a few years, maybe even brothers.. . .A series of vignettes over the years. AU where Jason never dies and Tim doesn't become Robin, but somehow the family still always comes together in the end.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson, Tim Drake & Duke Thomas, Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Selina Kyle
Comments: 85
Kudos: 476





	1. It’s Britney, Bitch

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back!! 
> 
> For some reason this idea just wouldn't get out of my head until wrote it out. I'm just tired of seeing Cat-Tim AUs where Jason and Tim are romantically involved, because y'know, brothers in canon means that's incest?? So I wrote one where they get to just become family like normal but also Tim gets to steal things. 
> 
> I promise that the next chapter of Prudence in the Desert is also on its way soon, because I finally got over some mega writer's block. Keep your eyes peeled!!
> 
> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

Tim actually hadn’t expected to run into any of the fabled Bats tonight, but y’know. When life gives you lemons.

That philosophy is why he finds himself running along Gotham’s rooftops at one in the morning, listening to the metallic jingling of his belt pouch and trying to set its rhythm to songs in his head. Somehow, he’s totally blanking on how  _ Toxic  _ starts. Is it  _ there’s no escape…  _ or is that the second verse? Shit. This is totally something he should have down by now.

He’s running at maybe half his normal speed, just to make sure this birdbrain stays on his tail. Aren’t these guys supposed to be total powerhouses? This kid isn’t about to win any track meets like this, much less put a stop to Gotham crime.

Tim snorts and vaults a gap between buildings.  _ Put a stop to Gotham crime.  _ Ah… classic. 

Apparently the Bats are always talking like that:  _ save the city  _ this and  _ do the right thing  _ that. And theoretically that’s fine and everything, but isn’t it a little sanctimonious coming from a billionaire with a fursona? Seriously, if the guy wants to stop crime in Gotham, maybe he could consider using his power and money to replace corrupt officials, dismantle systemic oppression, and equitably feed, house and educate the population. Maybe do those things instead of going the route of dressing up as a bat and punching dudes in the face? If anything, it makes them turn further to crime, since they need extra money to pay for medical bills. 

Okay, so he has opinions, but at the same time, small-time criminals aside, the Rogues Gallery would’ve long since destroyed the city without Batman there to stop them. Plus, it’s not like  _ Tim _ is really on the moral up-and-up; he probably shouldn’t be the one playing judge and jury.

Oh, shit, y’know what? It starts  _ baby can’t you see / I’m calling…  _ yeah, that’s it. Fuck, how could he forget? It fits nicely to the tune of his pouch when he runs at this pace — kind of like a tambourine. Ooh, that Melanie Martinez cover, the one from  _ The Voice _ where she had the tambourine between her feet? That totally slapped. Tim’s a fan. 

There’s an angry growl from behind him — it interrupts his chorus, which is honestly just rude. How is he supposed to hit those last few notes all cool like Britney does if he can’t even hear them? Stupid bird.

Yeah, also, on an unrelated note, what the hell is he doing right now? He hadn’t even had a job tonight — just went out to see what he could see and get a workout in, maybe snag a few diamonds here or there if they seemed obvious enough. So why is he bothering to lead this bird on a wild cat chase? Hell, why is the bird even  _ going  _ on this wild cat chase? He probably has something better to be doing, right? Stopping criminals or whatever?

Oh, wait, Tim is a criminal. Right.

Okay, then that takes him back to his first question. He could shake this kid off his tail in about two seconds if he tried — so why isn’t he trying? The contents of his pouch had been stolen yesterday (he knows he shouldn’t keep carrying them, but they’re just so pretty), so he hasn’t even done anything technically illegal tonight. Unless you count punching out that attempted rapist, but Tim sincerely doubts that the Bats get people arrested for vigilantism, considering. Besides, Tim isn’t a vigilante; he was just committing an act of basic human decency. That’s not too hard to understand.

But still, this bird is following him, and still Tim is leading him on. He’s actually never met this one before. The current Robin is unknown to him, although Tim knows that the first one, the one that he had grown up idolizing, is named Dick Grayson. These days the first Robin is Nightwing, a cape who operates over in Blüdhaven, for some reason. Is there more crime there than he thought? His research is seldom wrong, but he’s got an open mind. Maybe he’s sleeping on that place and doesn’t know it; he should try hitting Blüdhaven for good job opportunities if things run thin in Gotham.

Tim doesn’t know this new Robin — name, age, skills, anything — because he hasn’t gone looking. No matter how many times he’s wanted to do some digging and no matter how easy it would be to find out, he’s carefully kept himself away from learning this kid’s civilian ID. He’d found out about Dick and Bruce when he was only seven, before Selina had picked him up as her apprentice. Before she’d sat him down and explained to him that secret identities keep people safe, so he needs to be thoughtful about whose he finds out and whose he doesn’t. When the new Robin had come in, Tim had decided that he deserved to be safe just as much as Tim does himself — so he left the ID alone. He even keeps his nose out of any Bruce Wayne-related news, against his better judgement, since the kid probably lives with him and gets mentioned now and then. 

But now the guy is following him and he has no idea who he is. So there’s that.

He picks back up from where he left off in his song.  _ I’m addicted to you / don’t you know that you’re toxic?  _

God, that shit slaps. Britney deserves the world, honestly. 

The new Robin appears to have put on a burst of speed, because he’s gaining on Tim all of a sudden. Not enough to worry him, but enough that he has to make a call between escaping for the night and letting himself be “caught”. He glances back at the kid behind him. Sure, Tim isn’t actually trying to know his ID, but who’s ever cared about those? He wants to know what the kid is really like. Something about this Robin is distinctly different from Dick, and damn him, Tim wants to know what it is.

Well. They say that curiosity killed the cat — but Tim’s willing to bet that satisfaction will bring him back. 

Tim adds a touch of speed, leaping across one more gap between buildings before making a sharp turn to the left, coming to a stop behind a large a/c unit. He gracefully drops into sitting with his legs crossed, back perfectly straight because Mama didn’t skip out on teaching him the importance of good posture. Almost instinctively, he removes his pouch from its place on his belt, rolling the edges down and outwards until the contents are easily reachable. He counts thirty or so Spanish two- _ escudos —  _ pieces,  _ doblónes,  _ doubloons, whatever you want to call them — and listens to the metallic scrape as he drags one diamond claw across the face, grinning wide. Pirate shit always makes him giddy, and isn’t he in luck that one of the mob bosses around here thought it would be cool to deal in gold? Ah, the Gotham crime families and their flair for the dramatic. Tim loves them for it.

There comes the telltale sound of boots impacting gravel, and Tim’s lips quirk upwards. He stays firmly in his seat, brushing his thumb back and forth across the muddled image on the coin. Unconcealed footsteps approach him — the bird must be pretty frustrated. Tim decides to throw him a bone. 

“I thought you were supposed to have the big Bat with you.”

The footsteps don’t stop, don’t stutter, and Tim is willing to give the kid credit for that. He rounds the corner, green-gloved hands clenched into fists at his sides, and Tim is finally able to get a good look at him. Based on visuals alone, he’s older than Tim is, though only by maybe two or three years. Granted, Tim still looks like he’s nine years old, so Robin probably thinks they’re six years apart or whatever. His costume is a little different from Dick’s, a little more armored and a little more beat-up — a brawler, then? Probably, if the way he’s holding his shoulders is anything to go by, rounded and tense like he’s about to punch Tim for existing. His boots are solid but his steps are quiet, near-silent, even, and Christ, no wonder it took him so long to get here when he’s all weighed down like that. Tim would probably be that slow, too, if he had that much to carry.

Well, okay, maybe not  _ that  _ slow. But slow _ er.  _

The boy folds his arms, fixing Tim with his best  _ halt, villain!  _ glare. “What are you supposed to be?” He says, only sneering a little bit.

Ooh, okay. Maybe this’ll be interesting after all. “Whatever you want me to be, I suppose.” Tim finally looks up from his coins and gives the boy a cheeky smile. “I’m not busy.”

The lenses on Robin’s domino flash fractionally wider for the briefest instant, but Tim catches it all the same. He gets himself under control just as quickly. “Well,  _ I  _ am,” he says, “So tell me what you’re up to before I get bored and drop you off at the police station.”

Tim huffs a small laugh. “Oh, come on, bird boy. You and I both know you won’t go within a hundred yards of that place.” Tim leans back against the a/c unit, looking up to take in the poorly-veiled surprise covering the kid’s face. He can’t help but smile, a little more sincerely this time. “Besides, you were already bored. That’s why you chased after me.”

Robin blinks, eyes a little too wide to be neutral, and shakes his head as if to make himself focus. “What are you doing, kid?”

Tim looks around himself very obviously, over each shoulder and back. “Most people call this maneuver  _ sitting.  _ What do you call it in the Batcave?”

“Being lazy,” the boy answers testily, but Tim has to hide a grin at the speed of the reply. He appreciates wittiness, even at a pretty low level — it’s running pretty thin these days.

“I see.” Tim nods very seriously, eyes narrowed in thought, and then looks back up at Robin, innocent as can be. “And… is that something you take people to the police station over?”

He expects the kid to get mad, but oddly enough, one corner of his lips tweaks minutely upwards instead, just enough for a trained observer to notice. Tim refuses the urge to raise a curious eyebrow. 

“What about those?” Robin says, nodding towards the pouch. 

“Ah,” Tim says, twirling the doubloon in his hand around his fingers and rolling it across his knuckles. The motion is a sleight-of-hand practice exercise, but Tim thinks it makes a fun fidget, too. “18th century. Lovely, aren’t they?” He shakes his head, admiring the gold piece, the way the moonlight hits it just right. He should turn this coin into a necklace — it’s small enough to be a pendant, and nobody would consider that it’s the real thing. “Pretty wasted on Maroni, if you ask me. I’m a bit of a history buff.”

Robin’s eyes go wide as saucers and he takes a half-step forward, mouth falling open dumbly. “Wasted on— you stole those from  _ Maroni?  _ Like— like  _ Salvatore  _ Maroni?”

“Woah, hey,” Tim says, glaring playfully, “I like my plausible deniability, thanks.” He watches as Robin processes that, then scowls like a little kid, and he can’t help but laugh. “But  _ hypothetically… _ yes, I could’ve stolen them from Salvatore Maroni. That’s  _ very  _ hypothetical.”

Robin snorts — apparently he does it before he can think better of it, because in the next second he’s pursing his lips firmly and scowling harder. “You expect me to believe that you  _ stole  _ from the Maroni clan and  _ lived?  _ You’re, like, ten! _ ”  _

“Excuse you, I’m almost thirteen.” It’s kind of true — he’s still about three months shy, but it’s close enough, right? Tim hums, refocusing on his coin-twirling to do more impressive tricks. Maybe the crime families have a flair for the dramatic, but Tim is right there with them. What are the Cats if not a crime family in their own small way? “And I don’t expect you to believe  _ me,”  _ he says, spinning the coin on the tip of a finger with the claw retracted into his glove. He flashes Robin a sudden, wicked grin. “I expect you to believe CNN _.” _

Robin’s eyes widen again, but this time, when they narrow, there’s something different about his expression — it’s looser, a little less bruising. He gives his first hint of an intentional smile. “You’re one insane kid.”

Tim presses a flattered hand to his chest with a click of his tongue. “Aw, thanks.”

“So tell me,” Robin says, still not sitting down despite the awkward height difference that creates. “What’s a twelve-year-old kid doing stealing from a mob boss?”

“Hey, that’s  _ hypothetically  _ stealing from a mob boss. And I could ask you the same thing,” Tim says, raising an eyebrow with an easy smirk. “You can’t be much older than me. What’s a your-age kid doing punching criminals every night?”

Robin scoffs, but a tiny laugh comes through. “Haven’t punched  _ you _ , have I?”

Tim grins. “Maybe not yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Wouldn’t really surprise me, either.”

“Glad to know we’re on the same page.” He allows a pause for a moment, and then Tim flips the coin into his palm and yawns, stretching his torso long and upwards along a slight curve. “Welp. Time for me to turn in.” He gets to his feet and reattaches his pouch to his belt all in a single fluid motion, deciding to show just the barest hint of his speed and agility just in case Robin has any ideas about following him home. “Promised I’d be home by sunrise.”

The boy scowls. “You know I can’t let you go.”

  
“Funny,” Tim says, smiling cheerfully. “You sound just like Batman. Mama says he tells her that all the time.” He grins sharply at the way Robin’s mouth drops open, at the way he seems to suddenly connect dots in his brain. Let him, Tim figures; he could use the detective training. “See you around, bird boy,” Tim says, and he tosses him the doubloon in his hand just before he jumps backwards and dives off the building. He thinks he hears a cry of  _ wait!  _ as he slices toward the ground, but it’s lost in the wind when he fires his grapple and lets it yank him sideways and out of sight. 


	2. Cat or Mouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim's Tale of Despereaux, I think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

“I met Robin,” Tim tells Selina the following week from his position curled up on the couch. He can hear the little sounds of corn kernels popping on the stove and hitting the lid of their pot. 

“Oh, yeah?” Selina replies, and Tim feels warm from being able to hear the smile in her voice all the way from the kitchen. “Did he pass the test?”

Tim mushes his face further into his throw pillow. “What test?” 

“The  _ I can't let you go  _ test. It’s the one where they tell you they can’t let you go, but then they let you go anyway.” He can just  _ see  _ her grinning. “Well? Did he pass?”

Tim gives in and allows a smile to spread across his face. “He passed.”

“Yes!” Selina says, pumping her fist into the air and laughing in the kitchen, and Tim can’t help but laugh along. “So spill! What’d you think of him?”

“He’s, uh… weird. A little high-strung, but actually a lot less uptight than I was expecting. I let him catch me because I got curious.”

“Oh, don’t worry, baby,” Selina laughs, “I know you let him. I’ve seen that boy run — he could stand to learn a thing or two from you.”

“It’s all that armor, I think,” Tim says, counting the protruding pieces of the popcorn ceiling overhead. There’s popcorn all over the place today, huh? “Can’t imagine it’s much fun to jump while wearing it.”

“Well, it’ll make him really strong, really fast,” Selina replies. “Like training in a weighted suit.”

Tim groans, long and loud. “I don’t like weighted suits.”

“Yeah, but think of how fast you feel when you take one off.”

“This is true.” Tim hums and stops counting the pieces of ceiling, opting instead to survey all the book titles he can see from here. “He seems nice enough — more snark than Dick, which is fun. Pretty smart and quick on his feet. I gave him one of my doubloons.”

The popping stops as the pot is apparently removed from the stove. “Ooh, really? Even though it’s pirate shit?”

Tim shrugs even though she can’t see him. “I have plenty of pirate shit. He seemed like he needed a cool thing, so I gave him one.”

“The coin?”

“The encounter in general. I tried to make it at least a little mysterious — Bats eat that shit up, right?”

“Eh, it’s usually how I deal with ’em. I think that’s why they pass the  _ I can’t let you go  _ test — they let us go because we’re the only interesting thing around these days.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “And because they can’t catch us.”

Selina grins. “And because they can’t catch us.” She comes around the side of the couch and drops down onto the cushions, setting the bowl of popcorn beside her and picking up the TV remote, and then stopping to turn her full attention to Tim. “I’m glad Robin II passed the test. We’re keeping the streak, kitten. Keeping the streak.”

“You should get a Snapchat,” Tim snorts as he uncurls and starts the long journey across the sofa to reach the popcorn, which Selina has strategically placed on the far side of her body. Cheater. 

“Oh, Christ,” she huffs, smiling as she clicks through Netflix, “I’m not cool enough for that, baby. I’m an old, old lady, you know.”

“You’re only thirty-six, Mama.” He grins wide. “But I guess you  _ are  _ a little out of shape.”

Selina barks a laugh; the sound makes Tim grin even wider. “Ooh, say that again later when I clobber you in one-on-one.”

“What, soccer?”

_ “Basketball,”  _ Selina says with a glint in her eye. “Prepare to meet your doom.” Oh, basketball? Then yeah, Tim is fucked, but honestly that’s probably okay. He totally asked for it, after all. He gulps loudly for effect and smiles when Selina laughs again. From Netflix, she selects a John Mulaney special that they’ve both seen a hundred times — but it’s the one they saw least  _ recently _ , and that’s what really matters. She pauses the special before it’s even five seconds in and smiles softly as Tim finally settles his upper body in her lap, giving him easy access to the popcorn. She runs her fingers through his floppy hair, gentle and fond, and Tim relaxes into the touch contentedly like a cat in the sun.

There’s a moment of quiet, and Tim just lets himself take it all in: the small, shabby North Gotham apartment that his parents would kill him for setting foot in, where the air is more comfortable than any place on earth; the big red sofa that sits directly on the floor because it has no legs, with soft edges that make it look more like a huge beanbag than a couch; the chunky old TV with the sides covered in stickers from gift shops and dentist’s offices; stacks of books scattered around the floor and an assortment of Tim’s artwork plastered along the walls beside sticky notes and taped-up comic strips; the multitude of bright green plants filling empty corners and windowsills.

And Selina. Selina, the woman who’s given him the world and encouraged him to take it, who’s love is given freely and doesn’t have to be earned, who’s taken the time to get to know Tim as a person, not just an apprentice, simply because she felt like it. Selina, who has taken it upon herself to become the mother he’s never had, but only with Tim’s permission, only with his consent and help, because she doesn’t want to make him choose between her and his “real” parents. Selina, who taught him that he doesn’t need to be perfect to be worthy of love, who taught him that he doesn’t need to be anything except himself, who taught him to like and care about the person that Tim Drake is. Selina, who taught him to fight back against what’s wrong and stand up for the little guy — even if it means fighting back against her, telling her when he disagrees, managing that conflict. She taught him that.

He takes it all in, just for a moment.

It’s really a lovely moment. 

“Hey, kitten,” Selina says, and there’s something in her voice that makes Tim turn his head in her lap and blink up at her blearily. She gives him a huge grin. “Before we watch, I have a surprise for you.”

She taps at Tim’s forehead and he grumbles before moving so she can get up. “What surprise?” He says, letting his head fall into the space she had just left. 

“This one.”

Her voice is close, just a few feet away from him. Tim frowns and pushes himself up, leaning on his elbows to get a vantage point on whatever she’s talking about. He looks up and stops dead.

An instant later, the biggest grin in the world spreads across his face and lights up his eyes.

Selina smiles. “Isn’t it hilarious?” She steps forward and her fingers shift out of the way.

And there’s a kitten in Tim’s hands. 

It’s got a pretty coat, a light brown body with very dark brown on the ears, feet, tail, and face — and then other than that, it’s the goofiest-looking thing in the world. It has huge, round yellow eyes and disproportionately long legs like a spider, and that pretty-colored coat is  _ curly  _ like the thing has a shorthair perm, and atop its tiny head sit the most enormous ears Tim has ever seen. 

It looks absolutely ridiculous. Tim has never fallen in love with anything so hard, so fast.

“It looks like fucking Dobby.” The kitten gives a small  _ meep?  _ and Tim can’t help giggling before instinct takes over and he mushes it directly into his face. “Oh my god. It looks so dumb,” he laughs, voice muffled by silky-soft fur.

The kitten gives a slightly more concerned  _ meep…?  _ at this, but seems relatively unfazed by the general turn of events. The couch cushion dips when Selina sits beside him to pet the little cat, and he leans into her, curls into place with an ease that he never would’ve thought possible for someone like him.

“What do you think, kitten?” Selina says. Tim knows her well enough to know that she’s not nervous about it; she can read his emotions and body language like a book. But of course she asks anyway.

Tim gently lowers the tiny animal into his lap and raises an eyebrow. “Is it for me?” He asks, lifting his head to meet her eyes.

She smiles her sincere smile, the small, soft one reserved only for Tim, and nods. “He’s yours. I know your birthday isn’t for another few months, but I didn’t think I could keep him hidden until then — even  _ I  _ can’t keep a secret from Gotham’s little Batman.”

Tim huffs a quiet laugh and gives her an even wider grin. “I’d rather be  _ Cat _ man. Seems like more fun.” Selina just squeezes his shoulders and chuckles, and he runs a thumb over the tiny cat’s forehead. “What’s his name?”

“I was gonna leave that to you,” she says, tossing a piece of popcorn into the air and catching in her mouth. She reaches over and scratches at the massive ears. “He’s called a Devon Rex. They’re one of the smartest breeds out there — I figure that fits nicely with another brilliant kitten I know.” She ruffles his hair fondly. “Take good care of him, yeah?”

Tim scoffs and nods immediately, because  _ of course  _ he’ll take good care of him — he’s not all that capable of doing anything else, as he’s learned. “He’s gonna be the best cared-for cat in Gotham.” He looks down at the kitten and grins, lifting it back up to feel the angel-soft fur against his cheek. He pokes gently at the thing’s tiny head. “Look at his stupid ears. They’re so cute! I love him. He’s an idiot and I love him. His name is Despereaux.” 

Selina snorts. “What, the mouse from the kid’s book?” she asks. 

Tim grins. “He was a  _ valiant warrior,  _ okay?” He huffs dramatically and shakes his head. “And he had big ears.”

Selina laughs. “Alright, alright, it’s Despereaux. Weirdo.” She leans back and wraps her arm around Tim with that same soft smile, pressing play on the remote. “Happy early birthday, Tim.”

His grin softens into something less giddy and something more grateful as he runs his fingers over the fur of the kitten in his lap. “Thanks, Mama.”


	3. I Know What You Did Last Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim meets Robin for the second time — or rather, Robin meets him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

“You’re not easy to find, are you?”

Tim hadn’t even heard footsteps approach, but he gathers that tends to be the way with these people. He recognizes the voice enough to place it as Robin II, but the sentence itself is kind of odd. Has the guy been actively trying to find him since they first met three weeks ago? Tim just kind of figured this relationship would operate under the parameters of  _ see you when I see you —  _ coincidental meetings and running into each other more than anything. Is that not what you usually do when you meet people? Besides, why does Robin even want to see him? Aren’t they supposed to be on opposite sides of the law, here? Sure, Tim doesn’t care about that, but Batman has rules, doesn’t he? 

Tim hums, looking out at the twinkling city lights from his vantage point on the edge of this rooftop. “I’m not exactly hiding.”

“No, you’re not.” Boots walk up behind him to his left, louder than they need to be, for some reason. Probably just trying not to startle Tim. The sound stops just out of claw-swiping range, at least as far as Robin is concerned. Tim has a lot more reach than the kid knows, but it doesn’t matter; he’s not about to attack him. It’s always nice to start a little underestimated; gives you an extra trick up your sleeve somewhere down the line. “So what  _ are  _ you doing?”

“By your definition?” Tim says, letting a smirk flash onto his lips without looking up. “Being lazy.”

“I can see that. And Catwoman, she feels real confident about it? Thinks her assistant is making good choices?”

Tim raises an eyebrow without meaning to. It’s good that Robin has put two and two together, connected the little boy in a weird cat suit to the grown woman in a weird cat suit, but who gave him the impression that Tim is an employee? “Okay, first of all, I’m not her assistant. I’m just a kid; I’m her  _ apprentice.”  _ Tim ignores the way Robin’s eyes narrow fractionally in his periphery. “Second of all, she only tells me what she thinks of my choices when I ask her or when she thinks I need to know. And third of all, of course she’s confident about it. She trusts me. Mama didn’t raise no dumbass.” Tim laughs aloud lightly, thinking of the time when he and Selina had accidentally opened a pizza upside-down and spent, like, twenty minutes trying to figure out why they had been given a circle of bread with no cheese or toppings. This was last week. Maybe Mama raised a  _ bit _ of a dumbass.

There’s a pause wherein Tim wonders if he’s said something wrong, but it ends soon enough with Robin’s quiet question of, “She raised you?”

“Hm?” Tim says, finally glancing over. Robin is, once again, standing awkwardly behind him instead of sitting down, but Tim feels fine to put his back to the kid. Even if, for some reason, he decides to push him off this ledge (which doesn’t seem like a very  _ Justice!  _ thing to do), it’s not like Tim can’t catch himself before he splats on the pavement. But he knows Robin wouldn’t do that even if he wasn’t bound by a code. Somehow, he knows he wouldn’t. 

There’s a slight shuffling and the heavy boots are a bit closer to him now. “Did… is Catwoman your mom?”

Oh. 

“Oh,” Tim repeats aloud, “uh, no, she’s not.” He huffs a laugh, maybe a little more bitter than he intended. “I wish, though.”

“She really that much fun?” Robin says, edging a bit closer still. 

Tim decides to help him out, sliding backwards onto the roof and turning around to face the boy, leaning against the ledge. Robin’s mask lenses are a bit wider than normal, one eyebrow raised in what Tim reads as curiosity. This whole thing is probably pretty curious to the kid. Tim smiles, amused. “Yeah. She’s amazing.” He raises his eyebrow in turn. “What about you? Is Batman your dad?”

Robin’s lip twitches a tiny bit, and Tim knows he’s biting the inside of it, debating what the right thing to say is, or if he should even answer at all. “He’s… it’s complicated.”

“Would it make it less complicated if I told you I know he’s Bruce Wayne?”

Robin blinks, and Tim’s brain catches up with what his mouth just said. And now he kind of wants to jump off the roof and not catch himself.  _ Fuck.  _

Suddenly, the boy is standing directly in front of him, pressing the edge of a Batarang to Tim’s throat. His pulse hammers in his ears — not fast, really, but heavy, harsh, regretful. He can get out of this — that’s not the problem. The problem is that he might’ve just messed up everything that Selina has built by putting the Bats permanently on her tail. And he really, really hopes he hasn’t done that. And… for some reason, he hopes he hasn’t ruined his chance to make a friend in Robin. But that isn’t what matters now; he needs to stay focused on the weapon at his trachea.

“Where did you get that information?” Robin growls, and it’s actually kind of a scary sound, deep and gravelly, but Tim can see the nervous roundness of his lenses.

He refuses to swallow, unwilling to look like he’s afraid and also unwilling to put his Adam’s Apple closer to the blade. “You gonna believe me if I tell you?”

Robin bares his teeth and speaks through them. “Try me.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. At this point, he’s still pretty unconcerned. Robin might knock him out, tie him up, any number of things, but he won’t slice Tim’s throat, and better yet, he won’t take him to the police station.  _ That  _ Tim knows beyond a shadow of a doubt. 

He tweaks his head to the side, letting the blade of the Batarang drag slightly against the material of his suit, even letting it get a millimeter closer to his throat. “I was there the night Dick’s parents died.”

Robin freezes. Yeah, okay, Tim can work with that.

“I was there,” he continues, piercing blue eyes boring through his goggles and into the boy in front of him. Robin doesn’t try to look away. “I was four years old, and I watched him do a quadruple front flip, and I watched his parents fall when the rope snapped. I saw the whole thing. Robin hit the streets when I was six, and I started tailing him and Batman a few months later.” Tim gave him a smile, wry and a little crooked. “Imagine my surprise when I see him do that quadruple front flip off a rooftop. And once you know Robin, it’s not hard to get Batman.”

For a long moment, Robin just stares at him, his face completely blank. Tim stares back, mentally daring him to find a hint of a lie in his eyes. Sure, Tim is a damn good liar and always has been — but right now, the truth has never been so obvious. The dots connect, the story fits, there’s no reason for him to say anything other than what really happened. And that’s what he’s done. 

The blade disappears from his throat. With all the hellbent determination of a petty elementary schooler, Tim refuses to change his posture in any way, refuses to show that he was ever feeling anything but indifference. He’s gonna keep those tricks up his sleeve, no matter what.

Robin’s face enters his line of sight when the boy crouches down in front of him, resting on one knee. Eh, well… it’s not quite sitting, but it’s close enough for now. His eyes are narrowed with suspicion. “What do you mean ‘tailing him’?”

“I mean I was tailing them,” Tim says. “I’d go out at night and follow them around the city.”

“Why?”

“To take pictures.”

Robin blinks. “What?”

“Yeah, it was fun. Didn’t even get mugged that often.”

The boy shakes his head and blinks rapidly, as if Tim might suddenly vanish in a puff of smoke. “Hold up,  _ what?  _ How— if you were living on the street, where did you get a camera?”

Tim frowns. “Who said anything about living on the street?”

Robin’s mouth drops open and his head jolts back a little, just enough that Tim doesn’t see the moment when his eyes widen to discs. What, did he say something wrong again? “Wait, so— so you lived in a  _ house  _ and whoever lived there with you just let you go out following  _ Batman  _ every night?”

Tim breathes a laugh and raises an eyebrow. “My parents didn’t know — they weren’t home, so I just went. It’s not like they know about this, either,” he says, tugging on one of the little leather ears on his costume. 

“You still  _ live  _ with them?!”

“In that house?” Tim says, feeling little pricks of frustration at the tone. All the same, Tim doesn’t get angry easily — he’s not about to show it. “Kind of, I guess. I don’t stay there very often.” He refocuses his piercing gaze on Robin. “Why am I getting interrogated, exactly?”

The kid bares his teeth again. “So I can know as much about you as you  _ clearly  _ know about me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Tim laughs, “I don’t know shit about you.” Which is true, because he avoided the news and the research and the detective work. Maybe that was a good call for different reasons than he’d thought. 

“You literally  _ just _ told me all these things about the Bats.”

“About the  _ other  _ Bats,” Tim corrects. He huffs and cracks his neck to one side, only to immediately hear his mother scolding him loudly in his head.  _ You will never be a worthy Drake if you act so uncivilized. _ Thanks, mom. “I found out their IDs before I got in the game. These days, I mind my own business.” Tim looks up at the way Robin’s lips have parted slightly to show bared teeth, a puzzled expression plastered across his face like a second mask. Tim grins wolfishly. “Unless, of course, someone else does something to make themselves my business.” The grin relaxes, turns less wicked in an attempt to extend a minor peace offering. “You haven’t done that. I have no idea who you are, bird boy. All I know is that you’re less of a hardass than Batman and you enjoy holding people at knifepoint.”

At that, Robin winces a bit, and Tim just scoffs quietly and turns his head over his shoulder to look back at the city. For all the darkness and scum lurking in Gotham, the lights really  _ can _ be beautiful at night. Again, he hears his mother in his head:  _ Don’t become distracted, you indolent child!  _ That one is usually followed by a quick smack upside the head, long nails scraping through his scalp and leaving stinging marks in their wake, invisible beneath his dark hair. He can’t help the little sigh that escapes him. 

“You… actually don’t know, do you? You don’t know who I am.”

Tim doesn’t turn back to him, just continues studying the skyline. “Nope.”

“Even though it would be so easy for you to find out.”

Tim rolls his eyes. Haven’t they been over this already? “Like I said: not my business.”

“Right,” Robin huffs, and Tim sees him fold his arms in his periphery. “And what happens when you decide it  _ is  _ your business?”

Tim shrugs and finally looks at the other boy, smiling crookedly. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it.”

“‘If’?”

“I don’t really see myself getting there.” Tim raises an intentionally annoying eyebrow. “Why, do you have any wacky plans I should know about?” 

Robin scowls. Tim laughs. That exchange seems to be a running trend here. 

“Other than talking to you? No.”

Tim nods, crooked smile still in place. “That  _ is  _ pretty wacky, isn’t it?” He stretches casually — he’s gonna have to beat it in a few minutes here if he wants to be home on time tonight. “And why is that a plan of yours, exactly?” He asks, because he knows there’s a few possible answers and he kind of wants to know where the kid is at with them. As far as Tim’s concerned, reasons for talking to him essentially boil down to boredom, curiosity, or both. Arresting him would’ve been on the table, but at this point Robin has ignored so many chances that Tim thinks he’s safe on that one.

Robin scowls. “Crime rates are low right now. I got bored.”

Tim doesn’t even have to look at his face to know that’s not true. First of all, crime rates aren’t particularly low at the moment; they’re down a little bit, yeah, but definitely not enough that Batman would relax his patrol schedule. They had been lower a few weeks ago when they’d first met, so maybe the kid used to have a lot of time on his hands, but Gotham is back to normal now, so Robin should be, too. And second of all, the flatness of Robin’s voice makes it obvious that he’s lying. Hell, he likely has shit to be doing right now, but has chosen instead to follow after the goofy cat-boy. So Tim can go ahead and cross  _ boredom  _ off the list for tonight; looks like the kid is genuinely curious.

But if Tim knows anything, it’s that when someone lies, they’re doing it for a reason. And at least right now, he doesn’t need to know what that reason is. He’ll let Robin have this one.

“I see.” Tim hums thoughtfully and looks the boy in the eye. “Your plan doesn’t seem to be going very well, huh?”

“Why not? I’m talking to you, aren’t I?”

“Sure, but you don’t  _ know  _ anything,” Tim says, smiling as if he’s trying not to laugh. “You don’t even have my name.”

Robin looks at him like he’s a fucking moron, which, normally, would be totally fair. Tim may or may not still be thinking about the upside-down pizza. “Of course I don’t know your name,” Robin scoffs. “You’re a secret ID.”

Tim rolls his eyes. Jesus, this kid can be really dumb sometimes. “Not my  _ name  _ name. My alias. You don’t know it. You’ve just been calling me  _ kid.”  _ He rises gracefully to his feet and pops his back, walking casually towards the edge of the roof.

Robin opens his mouth as if to protest, to say that he  _ does  _ know Tim’s alias, but then he stops, the gears in his brain turning visibly as he thinks through the problem. “Oh,” he finally says, staring into space.

Tim can’t help his snort. “Yeah. Maybe think over that plan of yours for a while. In the meantime, I’m called Stray, and I’m going home before you try to pull any Bat bullshit.” He isn’t going home, of course — he’s gonna go scope out that new Falcone front on 43rd and 5th — but he’s gotta get going soon if he wants to do that before sunrise and home is as good an excuse as any. He shifts his foot in preparation to take a step, but is stopped by the boy’s voice.

“Wait— Stray.” The name sounds a little awkward from him, but at least it’s something. Tim pauses, turns his head back to face him, and to his mild surprise, Robin is holding the little golden doubloon in his hand. “Did you… want this back?” He says, voice laced with uncertainty, arm held close to his chest. Almost like he doesn’t want to give it up. Huh.

Tim gives him his classic crooked grin. “I gave it to you, didn’t I? Keep it.” And with that, he steps off the roof and disappears amid the city before Robin can poke his head out over the ledge to look.


	4. The First Trick Up Tim's Sleeve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, Tim is actually busy right now. He’s definitely gonna get distracted, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the moment, the chapters take place pretty close together in terms of time, but after the initial few meetings the timeline will start to stretch out to show more of the boys’ lives and the process of them and the family growing closer. Other characters coming soon!!
> 
> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

The third time he meets Robin is three weeks later, under admittedly uglier circumstances. Tim has just broken into the truck-loading zone behind the nice grocery store on 78th and 3rd — he has a randomized rotation of all of the corporate-owned grocery stores in the city for exactly this purpose. He pulls a random location three times a week and breaks into their truck of “throwaway” food and items — one-day-past-expiration hot dogs, produce that people decided they didn’t want once they got to checkout, crackers in battered boxes — and fills a big bag of the best stuff he can find to take to one of the three local homeless hotspots on his radar. Selina does the other four in the city, two in one night and two in another. She’s efficient like that. The grocery stores never notice — they were going to throw away the food anyway, and the sheer number of them plus the random rotation keeps them from seeing a recurring blip in their throwaway stock. 

He’s already collected his bag for the night and is heading to one of his hotspots, a group in South Gotham that always lets him pet their dogs and where he’s friends with a lot of the kids, when he hears the telltale sounds of a fight going down half a block to his left. Standard operating procedure is to ignore it, and Tim almost does, but that attempted rapist last month had honestly rattled him. He’ll just— he’ll just make sure that isn’t what’s happening, and then he’ll be on his way. That’s all.

He changes course and sweeps over three more buildings until he can hear fighting in the alley right below him. He tilts his head over the edge of the building, and— oh, god fucking dammit.

It  _ had  _ to be Robin, didn’t it? Just Tim’s luck.

He sets his bag of food down and scoots it underneath the lip of the roof, hiding it from nosy pigeons as best he can, and then turns back to get a better look at this fight. And really, he should just let the kid handle it. He’s the one who’s a superhero or whatever, right? He doesn’t need Tim’s help. 

But… those goons in the alley look really big. And he counts eleven of them, which is hardly a fair fight. And Robin’s kind of holding himself strangely, tilted at a bit of an angle to keep his left side low and out of the way, and he’s got his arm pulled into his chest all weird, and he’s clenching his teeth hard enough to see the muscle in his jaw from up here, and— oh, he’s injured, isn’t he? Fuck.

With a heavy sigh, Tim straightens and resigns himself to his fate. He can’t just leave the guy to get the shit kicked out of him — what kind of pseudo-acquaintance would he be if he did that? Besides, Tim isn’t exactly repressed about this; it’s no secret that he cares about the Robin mantle and all that it means and stands for. He might even care about the kid that holds it, but at the moment, he just doesn’t really know him. Still, this is back to that basic human decency he’s such a big fan of. It’s only right to help him when the odds are so unfair.

Tim raises an eyebrow and studies the scene for a moment, looking for the right opening. It looks like the goons are taking swings at Robin one at a time, which makes this a whole lot easier — they’re uncoordinated, not meant to fight as a team. They’re probably just hired muscle for some bigger player somewhere in the underground. He’ll know for sure once he’s down there, but from here they look like Penguin’s goons, the ones he rents out for individual jobs, although these guys read like recurring hires. They don’t have all the tension about them that Two-Face grunts have, nor the ridiculous mandated posture of Riddler lackeys, and obviously they don’t have the freaky Joker masks. At the same time, they’re experienced enough to stand a certain way, offensive and defensive at the same time, and they’re huge guys, which is a registered Penguin trademark. For some reason, he likes his hired muscle to tower over everyone. He’s probably overcompensating. Anyway, these guys are big and strong, but not very well-trained. The only reason Robin is unable to take them out himself seems to be that arm of his, whatever’s wrong with— there.

Tim launches from the roof and with the grace of an Olympic diver, invisible and silent as he slices through the air towards his opening. At the last moment before he hits it, he sees Robin’s eyes flash wider, just the smallest fraction of change before it’s gone, but Tim sees it. And that crooked grin comes over him, dancing sharp and wicked on his teeth and forcing burning adrenaline through his veins. 

God, he loves his nightlife.

He lands in exactly the right place — right where the biggest goon has his arm outstretched, pointing at something and completely unaware that he’s provided Tim the perfect opportunity to reveal one of those tricks up his sleeve. Granted, he would’ve liked to hold onto it for longer, but this scenario is just so  _ lovely  _ — why waste it?

He snags the goon’s arm along the way to the ground, where he rolls expertly to slow his momentum and maybe-kinda-sorta ends up dragging the guy with him, flipping him over his head and leaving him on the asphalt. The guy is down, not out — so Tim changes that with a quick nerve-strike as he darts to the top of a dumpster on all fours, keeping his body low and taking advantage of the shock value to knock two guys’ heads together and watch them drop. 

“Hi!” He says cheerily, flashing them his grin. “What are you boys up to today? Not ganging up on a kid or anything, are you?”

The men all blink at him, at their fallen buddies, back at him. Tim’s grin turns sharper. “What’s the matter?” He purrs, reaching for his whip. “Cat got your tongue?”

He watches with glee as one of the men seems to regain his senses — anger, namely — and growls, heaving what looks like a lead pipe over his shoulder and lumbering brazenly towards Tim. He makes a valiant swing with the improvised weapon, but Tim’s not there anymore; instead, he’s springing up off his perch and flipping over the man’s head, his whip cracking as it wraps around the pipe and yanks it free from thick fingers. He flicks it into his other hand and lands towards the mouth of the alley. 

He considers the object with a snort. “Really? A lead pipe? You must take after the henchmen on  _ Ninja Turtles.  _ Are you all related, or what?” He leaps into the group again and ducks two more fists before slamming the pipe into a dude’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him and giving Tim enough leeway to get in a solid hit to his temple with the butt of his whip. That makes four — so seven left? Tim turns and counts them quickly while he dodges a kick from a massive boot. Yeah, seven is right. Okay, so should he do this the fast way or the fun way?

He risks a glance over at Robin, who is just standing there, leaning against the wall and clutching his arm. The expression on his face is confusing: somehow, his face is managing to both gape and pinch at the same time. The goons are ignoring him for the moment, but Tim has no guarantee that that’ll last the whole fight. And also that arm looks like it needs tending. Ugh, fine — Tim will do the rest the fast way. But let it be known that injuries are a total killjoy.

He shifts his feet and tilts his head, and in exactly fourteen seconds, it’s over. He darts from one man to the next, moving before they can see him arrive, pinching pressure points and nerve clusters with razor-tight precision, never taking a single hit. At the end of fourteen seconds, when he’s satisfied that everyone is down, he double-checks his surroundings and hums, snapping his whip to gather it up and hooking it back onto his belt. He stretches his arms above his head as he walks over to Robin. 

“What happened there?” He asks, nodding to the boy’s arm.

The boy, though, just stares at him, mouth gaping open and closed repeatedly as he searches for words. Tim raises an eyebrow and waits. Finally, Robin gets it together enough to manage a mumble of, “You… how did…” his mouth snaps shut and he swallows, seems to clear his throat a little. “Um. You can fight,” he says matter-of-factly.

Tim grins — lopsided, but not wicked, not sharp. “I can fight,” he confirms, and then his focus shifts from the kid’s face to his arm. “And normally, so can you, but it looks like something’s kinda stopping you right now. How about you let me take a look at that, yeah?”

Robin’s eyes narrow. “Do you actually know first-aid?”

Oh, good, he still has some tricks up his sleeve, then. Again, always good to start off underestimated. He clicks his tongue. “You insult me, bird boy. Lemme see.”

Begrudgingly, Robin acquiesces and uncurls his body from its defensive stance, relaxing his grip on his injured arm with a grimace. The second Tim sees the shoulder, he knows it’s dislocated, but he forces away the instinctive urge to wince and instead schools his features into something resembling confusion. In this particular instance, underestimating Tim actually works in  _ Robin’s  _ favor, and Tim intends to play to that. 

He frowns and begins an examination of the forearm, and although he’s almost certain that the only issue is the shoulder and he’s just using right now as a distraction, it doesn’t hurt to be sure there are no fractures or breaks, either. “No bleeding anywhere? Head trauma?” He mutters.

“Neither. Just this arm,” Robin says, and his words are clear and precise, albeit said through clenched teeth, which means he’s probably telling the truth. Tim will take it.

“What did you do?” He says, moving his examination up towards the elbow, which is where this is all about to go to hell, hopefully. 

Robin grunts. “Got thrown into the wall,” he grits out. “One of the guys got in a lucky—”

Tim moves with no warning, a flash of hands shifting and a brief push and a disgustingly loud  _ click.  _ A choked scream escapes Robin for an instant before he slaps a hand over his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut against the pain. Tim notices them watering slightly, which is way less than what they should be doing. Tim dislocated his finger once in training, and he’d cried about that shit for over an hour — he can’t even imagine the pain of an entire  _ limb  _ getting snapped back into place, and meanwhile this kid is managing it like it’s a bee sting.  _ Christ _ .

“Sorry, sorry,” Tim whispers, and the wince on his face seems almost permanent at this point. In his head, he knows that doing it as a surprise is considerably less painful than the alternative, and he knows it had to be reset to prevent long-term damage, and all of those things. He knows. 

Somehow, it  _ really  _ doesn’t make him feel any less shitty.

“Just breathe, okay?” He mumbles, trying to be soothing in whatever way he can. “Breathe through it. You got it.” God, the kid’s probably gonna hate him after this. He should’ve kept his distance from the fight, shouldn’t have intervened and placed himself in the middle of it and acted like he knew better that Robin, shouldn’t have opened his mouth because—  _ because good children only speak when spoken to, Timothy; nobody wants a disrespectful heir, and you would do well to remember that. _

“Hey, alley cat. You in there?”

Tim blinks. There’s a hand on his shoulder. When did… who… he can’t help but look around, but his vision is blurred, and all he can do is dart his eyes all around in an attempt to see clearly. Finally, he shakes his head and his sight clears, and Robin is still in front of him, crouching with one arm held to his chest and the other outstretched towards Tim, towards the hand on his shoulder. He takes a small, sharp breath in. 

“Oh. Shit, sorry, I… uh. Just went somewhere. For a second. Sorry about your arm.” He tries to make it sound flippant, tries to make it sound like he hadn’t just flashed into an old, abusive way of thinking for a few seconds there. 

To his relief, though, Robin lets it go, just gives him a wry smile. “Nah, don’t worry about it. Thanks for setting it.” The smile turns a little more suspicious, albeit jokingly. “You’re a pretty good actor, kid, y’know that?”

Tim snorts and pretends to flip his hair. “I know.” He looks over his shoulder at the pile of assorted dudes still lying in the alley. “We should book it before these guys get up. C’mon,” he says, getting to his feet. He doesn’t move to help Robin up, but he does hold up a steadying hand, ready in case he suddenly falls.

“Wait,” Robin says, managing to stand without falling, “we have to secure them and call the cops first.”

Tim blinks. “Uh. Why?”

Robin blinks back. “Because they’re breaking the law? They’re working with Penguin?”

Oh, good, assessment confirmed. “I mean, yeah, but chances are they don’t want to be doing that — they just have to to make ends meet. And technically,  _ we’re  _ breaking the law, too.”

Robin scowls. “Well, no,  _ you’re  _ breaking the law. Because you’re a criminal.”

Tim raises an eyebrow — ooh, this is gonna be good. “Actually, you’re breaking the law more than I am right now. Vigilantism is illegal.  _ I’m  _ only here to aid a person in distress, which puts me under the Good Samaritan law in the state of New Jersey. Of the two of us,  _ you’re  _ the one going to jail, bird boy.”

He can’t help but grin as Robin falters slightly. Finally, the boy resumes scowling and settles on, “This is bullshit.”

“I know, right?  _ So _ draconian and antiquated. Kinda like turning people in when they’re just trying to get by.”

He stares at Robin. Robin stares back. 

Finally, the kid rolls his eyes and shakes his head. “Stray, these guys are bad news. I get what you’re saying, and normally I’m a lot more inclined to agree with you than you probably think I am—”

“No, I know you agree with me,” Tim cuts in, smiling sincerely for once. “I’ve seen the way you act with Batman; you hesitate over these things so much more than he does. I don’t know where you come from, but wherever it is, you know what this life is like better than most people,” he says, gesturing to the downed men. He takes in the look of complete startlement on Robin’s face and huffs a quiet laugh, deciding to let this one go. He moves to study the men again. “These guys are Penguin goons, but they’ve risen through the ranks significantly. Penguin isn’t cruel to his men — lets them leave if they want to. He usually hires muscle on a job-by-job basis, but these guys have come and gone several times each. They’ve been around long enough that they’ve all done some pretty bad shit, and it’s unlikely that all of it was done out of necessity. Take ’em in if you think it would be best. It’s your call.”

Robin stares at him, and then slowly pulls a bundle of zip ties from his belt, moving around from goon to goon and securing them all. Then he drops some kind of small button on the ground and is about to press it with his foot when he stops and looks over at where Tim is leaning against a wall, keeping watch of the mouth of the alley from behind the dumpster. “You’re gonna wanna get on top of the building.”

Tim frowns and meets his eye. “Why?”

Robin gestures at the button. “This is a beacon for the police. It alerts the nearest squad car of its location. I don’t know how close the responder will be — if they’re just around the corner, there’s a chance they could see you. You should get on top of the building.”

Tim blinks at him. “You… really?”

Robin huffs. “Go. I’ll meet you up there.”

“I— um. Thanks,” Tim manages, and then he’s gone, scaling the side of the brick building in a matter of seconds. Claws are such a useful addition, aren’t they?

He makes it over the ledge of the building and rolls because he can, staying low to make sure he isn’t seen by anyone on the ground. His eyes sweep over the roof and— ah, shit. The bag of food is still over there, tucked into a corner and waiting for delivery. He’d completely forgotten about it.

Oh, well. It’s only midnight — he still has plenty of time before sunrise, and it’s a Friday, so he doesn’t need to worry about getting up for school in the morning. He can talk to Robin, drop the food off at the South Gotham hotspot, and still have time to go spy on whatever the Maronis are up to down at the docks. That last one is definitely unwise, considering Tim messed with Sal Maroni relatively recently — not that the guy knows it was him — but as it turns out, curiosity gets the better of this cat all the fucking time. He’s totally gonna go look anyway. 

“How do you know who those guys are?”

Tim doesn’t startle, but he does turn over his shoulder from where he’s crouched in front of the bag to glare at Robin. “Don’t you ever warn people?”

“No,” Robin says, and he walks right over and actually _sits_ _down_ on the roof, just a few feet away from Tim, although still out of clawing range. Huh. Maybe that dislocated shoulder earned Tim some points or something. “You didn’t answer my question.”

Tim drags the bag out from under the lip of the roof, ignoring Robin’s raised eyebrow. “I keep tabs on the underground. I’m a criminal, right? So it’s my business.” He brushes the gravel off the bag and inspects it for any damage, just in case the pigeons got through his hyper-secure ledge hiding place. 

“Yeah, but you’re not a criminal like those guys are criminals,” Robin says with a frown. “They’re murderers and mob bosses. You just run around stealing stuff — it’s not like you’re killing people. How is it your business?”

Tim huffs something about  _ plausible deniability  _ before he grumbles and stares out into space. He could, theoretically, just tell him. He could tell him. Is he really about to tell him? No, he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t, it’s a bad idea, it’ll mess everything up and he’ll have to figure out a new way to deal with shit. He shouldn’t tell him.

Ah, fuck. He’s totally gonna tell him, isn’t he?

Tim sighs heavily, kicking himself before the words are even out of his mouth. “I drop anonymous tips to the police commissioner because I know he talks to Batman. But I only do it if something really bad is about to go down!” He mumbles, and then he scowls. Selina would call it pouting _.  _ “...Catwoman thinks it’s a good call,” he adds defensively.

Robin blinks at him, and then, after a long pause, suddenly starts cackling like a total lunatic. Tim can only groan, because  _ of course  _ this is his reaction. What the hell is Tim’s life? He just told a teenage bird-themed ninja vigilante that he, an almost-teenage cat-themed ninja thief, regularly spies and takes notes on their local mafia, drug cartels, and trafficking rings. And the kid  _ laughs.  _ Of course. Christ.

Robin’s cackling is finally starting to die down. “You might be the most— the most batshit crazy motherfucker I’ve ever met in my life.”

Tim scoffs, but he doesn’t fight the grin, doesn’t fight the laugh that comes through with it. “Look who’s talking,” he says, and he gestures over his shoulder at the alleyway below. “You have a higher pain tolerance than the Hulk.”

“I don’t think the Hulk feels pain.”

“No, he totally does. Remember that scene in  _ Ragnarok  _ when the wolf thing bites him and he freaks? That counts.”

“I thought you were gonna cite that scene in  _ Ragnarok  _ when he hears the recording of Natasha on the plane and experiences  _ emotional  _ pain.”

Tim snorts and immediately falls into giggles without meaning to. This is what always happens when he laughs — it’s a major issue, honestly. It’s super annoying and it makes him sound like a little kid, and— and Robin is beaming at him. 

“What?” He says, trying to swallow his laughter.

“Nothing,” Robin says, shaking his head. “Just… sometimes the costumes make me forget that everyone doing this is just a person, y’know? But laughing is so human.”

Mildly bewildered, Tim can only give a lopsided smirk and roll to his feet, picking up the bag as he goes. “A lot of people think we’re insane for doing this  _ because  _ we’re just humans.”

Robin grins. “Are they wrong?”

“Nope.” Tim heaves the bag onto his back and goes to jump off the roof when a thought suddenly strikes him and he pauses involuntarily. “Hey, would you…” he cuts himself off, thinking. But no, no need to ask him — he’s probably busy.

“Would I what?” Robin says, considering him. 

Well, now he’s in it. Can’t back out ’till he asks. “I’m… going to South Gotham. To run an errand. Do— um. Do you want to come with?” 

“Y’know? Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Tim blinks as his eyebrows lift to his hairline. “Really?” He mutters, and then, “I mean, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Let’s do it.”

Robin seals his lips around a smile that Tim still sees and steps up beside him. “Lead the way,” he says, and Tim grins, leaping from the building without a second thought. 


	5. The Second Trick Up Tim's Sleeve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim really just invited Robin along on this errand, huh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes place immediately following the one previous :)
> 
> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

He fires his grapple to the other side of the street before the cops can see him. Robin, surprisingly, actually follows, albeit favoring his good arm, and Tim hums as he continues across town, swinging here and there and running (fairly slowly) along rooftops, cutting around Crime Alley for Robin’s sake.

Ten minutes later, he stops on the roof of an old, decrepit building, the nearest in the city to the overpass. A few seconds after he makes it to the far edge, he hears quiet footsteps approaching from behind him — quiet, but not silent. He smirks. “So you  _ do  _ warn people.”

“Only if they’re scaredy-cats,” Robin replies with a shit-eating grin as he walks to Tim’s side, still just out of clawing range. “What’s this?”

“Our destination,” the other replies, and points to the overpass. “Right under there. Follow me, and stay low; there’s a lot of shady shit around here at night.” He dives off the building and lands in a silent roll, and judging from the taller shadow that follows him down, Robin has perfected his landings, too. They scurry along the ground and across the last few blocks of empty asphalt; there were supposed to be buildings here, once upon a time, but now all these lots remain empty and overgrown on the edge of town. It’s the way of Gotham.

Luckily, aside from one or two lurkers that they deftly avoid, they don’t run into anyone along the way. When they hit a chain link fence with the sounds of cars honking and rumbling overhead, Tim grins and gets to his feet. “Stay here a second and come out on my signal,” he whispers, and he vaults over the fence before Robin can protest, because he undoubtedly will. He’ll get over it, though — he can see through the gaps, anyway, so it’s not like he really needs to be out here.

Tim lands gracefully and is immediately swarmed by a crowd of tiny children.  _ “Kitty!”  _ They cheer in a dozen mismatched voices, but when they run at him and slam into his legs, they certainly act as one. Tim goes down with a yelp that immediately turns into laughter. 

“Hi, guys!” He says, and it’s much, much closer to the soft, bright voice of Tim Drake than it is to the bolder, more sultry voice of Stray. He knows that’s a dangerous change, but he can’t really bring himself to care about this one. The kids swarm him, little arms hugging and clapping and tugging at his ears, and his grin is so wide it hurts, but he loves it. 

“We missed you!” Says one of the older children of the group, an eight-year-old called Mateo. The kid has tangly brown hair and a million freckles, and Tim knows he likes to swim — according to him, Katie Ledecky is the coolest person ever, and Stray is the second-coolest. Tim thinks that’s understandable.

Tim ruffles the kid’s hair and smiles. “Aw, buddy, I missed you guys, too. I’m sorry I was gone for so long. But I brought a present!”

The group heaves a collective gasp. It’s tiny and adorable. “A  _ present?”  _ Several of them shout.

“That’s right,” Tim says, grinning wide. “Right here!” He gestures with his hand at the fence, and at once, Robin springs out and over, hitting the ground beside Tim and sticking the true superhero landing. Tim ignores the urge to roll his eyes and gives into the urge to laugh a little.

“Hey, kids!” The other boy says, and his voice is different, too, gentler, not so brash. He kneels down to be closer to eye level. “What are your names?”

The collective gasp turns into squeals of glee, and the kids stampede forward the way only kids can, their eyes full of wonder and awe as they all crowd around and start shouting their names all at once. 

“Kitty! Kitty!” A little girl, Andy, whirls around and grabs Tim’s hand, prompting several of the others to repeatedly switch back and forth between staring at Tim and staring at Robin. “You brought Robin? You brought Robin?” She says, eyes and smile huge. 

“I invited him,” Tim amends. “I just told him he could come if he wanted to. He wanted to meet you guys so bad he came all the way across the city!”

The gasp returns with a vengeance, and then all the kids are laser-focused on Robin, introducing themselves again and again and asking a million questions. Oddly enough, Robin seems to be having a blast. His grin is genuine and his eyes are crinkled at the edges — Tim is willing to bet they’re twinkling behind his domino — and he’s answering all their questions with patience and enthusiasm, remembering each kid’s name. Huh.

Tim stands, but only makes it a step away before Andy snags his hand again. “Are you leaving?” She asks, and suddenly all eyes are back on him. Oof, these kids. 

“No, sweetheart, don’t worry.  _ No les preocupen, chiquitos,”  _ he soothes. He nods towards a larger group of people, adults and older kids and teenagers, and pats the bag on his back. “I’m just gonna go give this to your parents and help them pass it out, okay? And then we can play all you want. I’ll be right back.”

One of the kids pipes up from near Robin. “Did you get Pop Tarts?”

Tim physically feels his face light up. “Yep! I found some and saved them just for you guys!” The kids cheer and Tim smiles, knowing that he’ll never tell them that he didn’t find the Pop Tarts in the throwaway stock — he bought them himself in advance. He just wanted to be sure they got some this time, since the kids love them so much. “I’ll be right back,” he says again, and Robin very helpfully says something that grabs the kids’ attention enough that Tim can slip away.

He is received by a woman who, he knows, is far too young to look so tired.  _ “Bienvenido, mijo,”  _ she says, and Tim smiles at the rush of warmth in his chest. The woman, Pilar, is Mateo’s mother, and is essentially running a lot of this camp as best she can while managing the hardship of homelessness and her three young children. She opens her arms and Tim smiles softly, drops his bag and steps into them, allowing himself to be enveloped in a mother’s hug. It’s a sensation he never got as a young child, and one that, as a near-teenager, he can’t get enough of. 

Pilar is different from Selina, but she’s still a motherly figure in his life. He just wishes he could do more. The single bag of food can’t possibly be anywhere  _ close  _ to enough, but every time he’s here, they all do their best to make it work. He knows that he doesn’t understand this situation at all, doesn’t understand the incredible struggle of homelessness in America, and he wishes he could wipe it all away, but his parents would never use their money for such “frivolous” things. So Tim does what he can. 

He pulls away after a long moment and smiles when she scowls and brushes a thumb over a small scrape on his left cheekbone. “Oh,  _ qué chico tan pesado _ . Always out there getting banged up.” She ruffles his hair fondly and he laughs.

“Would you believe me if I said it was a paper cut?”

“Not for a second,” she says kindly, and then pats his shoulder. “Now, go on, go say hello. I’ll get started unpacking.” He nods and moves to leave, but he looks back when there’s a tug on his shoulder. Pilar looks at him with nothing but gratitude in her eyes.  _ “Y mijo —  _ thank you.”

Tim smiles, just like he always does when they have this exact exchange. “Honor’s all mine.” 

He squeezes her hand and walks off towards a group of other adults, to whom he briefly says hello as they prepare to help Pilar unpack the food. They smile kindly at him and some stop to give him cheek kisses, and then he moves on to a group of older folks, switching into Spanish to make sure he can talk to them all. The old folks are kind, and they always ask him his opinion on things to settle debates. Today his answer is, translated,  _ yes, I think  _ Twelve Angry Men  _ is actually a good movie, and not just interesting for only filming in one room.  _ He next comes upon the older kids and the teenagers, hanging out or doing homework by candlelight or playing  _ vitilla  _ in the more open area. He pitches a couple rounds and talks with them about politics and funny things they’ve all seen since they last met and books they’re reading and that one really annoying teacher at school. And Tim relaxes. He smiles, and he means it.

When he’s here, he always means it. This is one of the only places on Earth where he doesn’t feel like he has to earn his keep. These kids are his friends; if he were to show up without the food one day, they would still be just as ready to goof off and joke around and groan about babysitting the little kids. They appreciate the food, sure, but they also just like him for who he is, not for what he gives them. This is the closest he ever comes to letting his guard completely drop; in a lot of ways, these are the only people he would really consider his friends.

It’s nice to feel wanted. Selina makes him feel wanted, yes, but she’s a statistical outlier, and she’s also an adult — the only one who gives a shit about Tim Drake in any capacity. But these kids are his age, and he’s confident that if they knew Tim Drake instead of Stray, they would still be just as happy to see him, still treat him just the same. 

And maybe they’re too good to him. Maybe he doesn’t deserve this. But it’s there, so just for a while, he’ll let himself take it.

When the kids are all called to help distribute the food, Tim goes, too, bouncing on his heels and laughing along with the story his friend Ángel is telling. They get back to the central area, and now Robin is here, too, and oh, shit, Tim had kinda forgotten he’s here. How long did he ditch him for? Shit, hopefully he didn’t fuck up the kids too much.

Except Robin is laughing at something one of the women just said. He’s happily obliging the little children that occasionally come over to him and ask to be picked up. He’s helping sort the food, he’s talking politely to the older folks, he’s… fitting in. 

_ Oh _ .

Well, now Tim hopes  _ he _ hasn’t fucked this up. Robin — whoever Robin is under the mask — wasn’t just a Crime Alley Rat; he used to be homeless, or a street kid in some capacity. Has Tim just gone and called back bad memories by bringing him here? Fuck, what if he’s pissed? Has he changed his mind about taking him into the station? Is Tim gonna have to be ready to make a run for it?

“Kitty, up!” A toddler demands with a pout, and Tim snaps back to himself. Right. Right. He can’t exactly skip out, and Robin can’t exactly attack him, so he’s safe for the moment. Work now — plan an escape later. He lifts the toddler up onto his shoulders to keep his hands free, smiling a little when she grabs the cat ears on his cap to use as handholds. He makes his way over to Pilar.

“What can I do to help?” He asks, ignoring the tug of the child yanking at his hair.

Pilar gives him an exhausted smile. “If you could help Ángel with sorting the meat, that would be great.” She scowls at him then. “ _ Mijo,  _ this is over fifty pounds of food. You’re not hurting your back for this, are you?”

He laughs, feeling warmth seeping into his chest again. She has that effect on people. “No, Pilar, don’t worry. I can handle it, I promise.” And really, he can. Tim might only weigh ninety pounds soaking wet, but he’s strong, too.  _ Tough n’ tiny,  _ Selina calls him. 

Pilar eyes him suspiciously, but finally clicks her tongue and swats at him. “Alright, alright, I believe you… for now. Go help Ángel.” Tim laughs again and scurries off towards his friend.

When the food is all sorted and distributed equitably, and after Tim gets dragged into playing three rounds of hide-and-seek and a game of marbles with all the kids, he hesitantly goes to collect Robin so they can head out. Even if the kid is about to straight-up cuff him, he can’t very well leave him here for Pilar to deal with. Besides, it’s almost 4:00 AM, and time to scope out the docks is running short — he needs to get moving if he wants to make it tonight. His mind, though, can’t stop straying back to those thoughts — had Robin even wanted to be here? Had Tim just left him to be retraumatized this whole time? Ah, shit… look, he may be a criminal, but he’s not a monster. He doesn’t have it in him to purposely trigger someone, but having it happen because of callous ignorance might be even worse.

He says goodbye to Pilar and approaches the group of kids, all sitting in a circle and listening with rapture to Robin, who’s telling some Bat-story or another with a great deal of detail-fudging and quite a few sound effects. Tim pads up with a half-fake smile on his face and waits for the story to end before he cuts in. “Hey,  _ chiquitos _ ,” he says, “it’s getting late. Robin and I have to get going.”

There’s a lengthy chorus of  _ awwww…  _ that Tim had anticipated because it happens every time he leaves. And every time he leaves, he gets a little more desperate to make this place better, leaves a bigger and bigger piece of his heart with these people. It aches in his chest now — it always becomes so obvious to him when he’s on his way out. He needs to remember to appreciate the moment while it’s there — the past and the future mean nothing when the present is uncared for. 

Where’s Master Oogway when you need him?

“Will Robin come back with you next time?” One of the little ones asks, and Tim bites his lip from the inside. 

“I’m not sure, buddy,” he says, smiling kindly. “We’ll see.”

Robin is looking at him when he lifts his head, something odd and tilted in his features, and Tim tilts his gaze slightly away in an effort to get out of here quicker. “I’ll do my best to come back soon,” Robin’s voice promises, and Tim wonders if it’s really that, a promise, or just words to give a little kid some hope. Tim says goodbye to all the kids, toddlers and teenagers alike, and secures the compressed, empty food bag to his belt before walking back to the chain link fence. He turns over his shoulder to take one last look at it, at this self-built village under the overpass in South Gotham, at this hidden corner of the world that struggles so desperately yet remains so warm. 

Tim smiles. He vaults the fence.

“Follow me,” he whispers again when Robin lands behind him, and he realizes he probably shouldn’t look back yet, so he focuses on moving forward. He weaves through the fields and empty lots, clinging to what shadows he can find until he runs into a brick side of a building. He scales it in an instant, and is already curling his hands into fists to stop them from fidgeting by the time Robin joins him, refusing to look at the ground even though his mother is in his mind, shouting at him to put his head down, to only speak when spoken to. Robin takes one step towards him and all the words fall out.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was taking you, I realize that it might have been— upsetting or— or frustrating. I totally just ditched you there to deal with the kids, and that wasn’t fair to you. I’m sorry.”

“What?” Robin says without pause, and a grin that Tim hadn’t thought about melts off his face, replaced by furrowed eyebrows and oddly quirked lips. “What are you talking about? That was awesome!” His face sparks and lights back up, just-made memories flashing behind his eyes. “Everyone was so nice, and I got to play games with the little kids and everything, and—” He looks over at Tim, excitement dimming slightly but still very much present. “Do you do that all the time? Where did you get the food?”

Bewildered, all Tim can do is offer a confused tweak of his head. Isn’t the kid supposed to be, like… mad? Traumatized? Tim knows he isn’t wrong in his assumption that he used to be homeless; didn’t he essentially just toss him into a bad dream? Shouldn’t Tim be either running off or on his way to the station by now?

Maybe he shouldn’t press his luck. “I, uh… that’s… kind of my business.”

Robin raises an eyebrow, but he’s still smirking. “You stole it.”

Tim scowls and conducts his standard search for plausible deniability. “ _ Stole  _ is a strong word,” he says airily, deciding to retreat into the Stray persona for now. He needs something to keep him grounded because he’s honestly a little more surprised that he cares to admit, and at the moment, the cat is all he’s got. “But  _ hypothetically,  _ it could be some of the throwaway stock from one of the corporate grocery stores in the rich part of town.”

“So, hypothetically, you took the leftover food that they weren’t using and gave it to people who needed it.”

“...Hypothetically.”

And again, Robin  _ laughs,  _ that classic cackle that makes Tim feel like he’s just a kid with a camera all over again. He doesn’t mind the feeling. To an extent, he misses it, actually.

He scowls anyway. “What’s so funny?”

“You call yourself a criminal?” Robin manages through his laughter. 

“I  _ am  _ a criminal,” Tim corrects, folding his arms. And he’s right — he does illegal shit all the time. He’s a robber and a burglar and that means he’s a criminal, okay? He just kicked the shit out of a bunch of guys earlier, didn’t he? That’s assault. Aggravated assault, probably. He’s — okay, maybe he’s never been to  _ jail,  _ but he’s had a few close calls! And he’s definitely committed a lot of robbery —  _ armed  _ robbery, if his whip and things count. Oh, wait, no, robbery is when you take things from someone  _ directly _ , like sticking up a bank or something… okay, so he’s committed a lot of  _ burglary,  _ trespassing, vandalism, property damage, and theft, but those are just semantics, right?

Right. Tim is a criminal, no matter how you slice it. 

“Yeah, sure,” Robin wheezes, slowly starting to get over his cackling fit. “You send in tips to the police to help them stop the mob and you deliver excess food to people in need. You’re a regular Al Capone.”

Tim rolls his eyes. “What do you call me, then?”

“I dunno,” Robin says, finally straightening. “I’d call you a Robin Hood, but that seems like my thing.”

“Yeah, whatever, bird boy,” Tim huffs. He cracks his neck, ignoring the voice of his mother, and absently lifts himself into a handstand because he's bored and has all the required nervous energy to scope out the Maronis and this is just what he does, okay? “You punch, I steal. Let’s keep it at that.”

“Why don’t you punch?”

Tim frowns. “Huh?”

“Why don’t you do the vigilante thing? You’ve clearly got the guts for it, and you fight like a maniac.”

He scoffs and flips out of his handstand and onto his feet, holding his arms out to either side and nodding to himself to display just how incredibly scrawny he is. “Look at me, Rob, I’m tiny. I take one hit, it’s game over. Those goons would’ve snapped my spine like a twig.”

“You’re too fast to get hit, though,” Robin says, and his tone is a little too excited for Tim’s taste. “And you’re not wearing any armor; not even kevlar. A little security and you’d be good to go.”

_ “And,”  _ Tim huffs sharply, folding his arms again, “I don’t see the point. Incidentally, infiltration and theft are fun, and I think there are better ways to reform the city than by punching its people in the face.”

Robin frowns at him for a long moment, during which Tim holds firm, one eyebrow raised expectantly as he resists the urge to complete the image and tap his foot. Finally, Robin nods and rolls his eyes. “Fine. But you should still be wearing armor. If you’re gonna fight like that, you have to be able to take a hit. We could train you.”

Tim is about to argue about how he hadn’t  _ planned  _ to fight like that, but it occurs to him that he’s been doing it more and more these days, hasn’t he? Dropping down to punch that rapist, doing weird spying on the crime families around town, and now helping Robin not get his ass handed to him… it all boils down to a picture that he doesn’t entirely love. Since when is he a fighter? All his life, Tim has run interference and damage control and reconnaissance and infiltration in a million different scenarios — in the Drake mansion, at galas with his parents, in his years tailing Batman and Robin, working jobs as Stray — always hidden, always stealthy and silent, delving into his brain long before he even considers using his claws. And that’s — well, it’s always served him well, at least, to lie in wait and think five steps ahead. 

But… what if he could apply that to fighting, too?

What if he could take a more proactive role, go on the offensive more than the defensive? Everything would move much quicker, and he’d have the security of being able to defend himself in situations that are currently unwinnable for him. He’d need supplies, and access, and a plan, but… but maybe… 

Hm.

Tim looks up at Robin. “I don’t really have the resources right now. But… one day? Yeah. I might take you up on that.”

Robin’s face splits into a wide grin. “Ready when you are, alley cat.”

Tim can’t help but grin back. He nods and moves to the edge of the roof, but Robin stops him before he jumps.

“Hey, um… thanks. For bringing me with you. I… it was nice to feel at home.”

Tim’s grin softens slightly. “Well, if you want to visit next time I do, come find me.” He gives a goofy two-finger salute, and he leaps into the night.


	6. The PTA Bakesale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim thinks Selina would make a good soccer mom. Selina introduces Tim to an old friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

The next time he sees the kid is during a heist, unfortunately. It’s only a week after their third meeting, and he’s helping Selina with her latest job, which is to steal a specific necklace from a jewelry exhibit at the local museum of fine art. Apparently the woman who used to own the necklace wasn’t properly consulted before the transaction. Translation? Someone stole it and the museum is perfectly happy to have dirt on their hands. 

Well, so is Tim, so that works out.

They run into the Bats just at the tail end of the heist, when they’re standing on the roof and Tim is (very kindly) resetting all of the security that he’d dismantled. The last step will be to trip the alarm and be on their way. He just needs to do four or five more systems — two minutes, tops.

“I’ll never understand how you do all this shit with a tiny thing like that,” Selina says, nodding at the device in his gauntlet. It’s a little clunky because it also fires his grapple, but that makes the grapple far easier to use, so he thinks it’s worth it. Tim designed and built the computer himself — he’s already working on schematics for better models in the future, but he doesn’t have access to all the materials he needs. Soon, hopefully, if he can figure out how to get his hands on things. Hey, Tim’s nothing if not a problem-solver — one who isn’t afraid to take what he needs from whoever has it, at that.

He grins and types out a few more commands — the security cameras in the building stop looping their feed and switch seamlessly back to normal. “Maybe you  _ are  _ getting old.”

“I know, right? Should I become a soccer mom? I could attend the PTA bake sale.” 

Tim hums seriously. “Do we know what the PTA is yet?”

“Still on the list,” Selina replies, equally seriously. “We’ll find out one of these days. I believe in us.”

Tim doesn’t look up at the sound of heavy boots making contact with the roof, nor does he pay attention to the deep growl of, “Catwoman.”

“Hey, Bats,” she says flippantly, and refocuses on Tim. “What do you think it stands for?”

“Uh…” Tim enters a few more commands and then clicks his tongue. “Penguin Trying Acid.”

“You don’t think he’s  _ always _ on acid?” Selina says, sounding surprised.

Tim purses his lips and shakes his head, poking at his screen. “I think Nygma’s the one dropping acid. He acts like it.”

“You have no idea what people dropping acid act like, kitten.”

Tim snorts, but also, she’s basically right. “I’ve seen  _ 21 Jump Street.” _

“Not the same.”

_ “Catwoman.” _

Selina huffs and turns around. “What?”

Batman is rolling his eyes. According to Selina, the two of them do this routine a lot, but seeing the Dark Knight look like a tired babysitter is just impossibly weird to Tim. “Return whatever you stole. Now.”

“Ah, Bats…” Selina sighs, stepping slowly in his direction and clicking her tongue. “You always accuse me of stealing. Don’t you ever think of how that hurts my feelings?”

“You  _ are  _ stealing.” Batman remains both stoic and exasperated as she places herself right into his space, smirking and looking up through long lashes from where the bridge of her nose matches the height of his chin. 

“Is that what I’m doing?” She places a slender, clawed hand on his chest.

Finally, Batman raises an eyebrow. “No,” he amends, “you’re stalling.”

“Yeah, for no reason,” Tim huffs. He gets to his feet in the blink of an eye, then wonders if he looked too much like he was trying to impress Batman. Was it awkward? He probably made it awkward. Whatever; he can agonize over it when he’s trying to sleep three weeks from now. “I’ve been done with this for thirty-seven seconds.”

Selina laughs, full and real, and drops her hand, turning on her heel and striding ever-gracefully back to Tim. “I thought so. But I wanted to introduce you to an old friend of mine.” She puts a gentle hand on Tim’s shoulder and looks over at Batman. For the first time, Tim notices that Robin is standing off to the side behind him, arms folded and jaw set, as is the standard. “Batman, this is Stray. He’s my apprentice.”

Raising his eyebrow higher, Batman steps forward and pauses for a long moment, studying Tim, who valiantly forces himself not to move. This man was one of his childhood heroes, and now he’s standing on top of a museum that he just robbed while wearing a leather catsuit, meeting him like it’s nothing. How is this his life?

Finally, the man extends a hand towards him. After the barest moments’ hesitation, Tim meets him halfway. “So you’re Stray,” Batman says, folding his arms once he retracts his hand. Tim notes that his voice has lifted from a growl to simply gravelly or rough, deep but not scary. “I’ve heard you know my name.”

Tim narrows his eyes. God dammit, of  _ course  _ Robin would’ve reported back on that. Tim flicks his gaze over to the kid — but actually, his face is totally open for once, and he looks… shocked? Like Batman shouldn’t know that under any circumstances. What’s with that?

“I think all of Gotham knows your name, sir,” Tim decides to say, unwilling to let his voice or posture or expression waver. “You  _ are  _ their Knight.”

The tiniest twitch ghosts over Batman’s lips; Tim wants to scream. How is this even possible? The guy might actually  _ smile? _ Because of  _ him?  _ No fucking way.

“ _ Hn _ ,” the man mutters, his eyebrow falling back into place. “And what about my  _ other  _ name?”

Tim looks up at him, chin lifted and shoulders back. He has one shot to do this without totally losing his shit — he better make it quick. “I think all of Gotham knows  _ that  _ name, too.”

Batman stares at him, unflinching and motionless. Externally, Tim is calm, making use of over a decade of acting his way through shitty galas to stare straight back. 

Internally, though, his brain has devolved into nothing but that sound that R2-D2 makes when he freaks out. A scream? A cry? A, uh… a prolonged shriek. Is what Tim would call it, probably. Just, y’know. If anyone were to ask. 

“So Stray,” Batman finally says, and Tim still doesn’t move, but it’s pretty obvious that he’s listening with intense attention. Batman doesn’t falter. “What do you think of getting some extra training?”

Tim’s eyebrows lift way higher than they should be able to. Is that… like, is he serious? Is this allowed? Can he just… okay, what happens if he says it would be good? Does Batman, like, kill him on site for trying to infiltrate the Batclan or whatever? Does he actually train Tim? Wait, is he talking about training Tim himself, or having someone else do it? How does this work? What is happening right now?

“I thought you said you wanted to wait and see,” Robin whispers sharply, and Tim realizes he’s talking to Batman. Did they discuss training him? Was this seriously a conversation that happened?

“I did,” Batman replies at a normal voice volume. “I waited, and I saw that this young man just uninstalled and reinstalled a state-of-the-art WayneTech security system in less than five minutes. And I saw that there’s no trace of his handiwork anywhere in the system. And I saw that he’s willing and able to take Catwoman down a peg, which is something that I’m  _ still _ working on doing.” Batman steps forward and considers Tim. “And I’ve seen some of your older work — including a few interesting photos and casefiles.”

Tim bites down on a strangled gasp. How did he get that information? He would’ve had to break Tim’s laptop encryption, but— but there’s no way. 

Tim wants to hit himself just for thinking that. Of course there’s a way — this guy is  _ Batman. _

The man considers him. “What do you think? It’s up to you — if you decide right now isn’t the time, we could always wait a few years and come back to it.”

Tim blinks. For some reason, all he can think to do is turn to Selina. “Would I… but… I don’t want to just leave you alone…”

Gentle hands land on his shoulders. “Don’t worry about me, baby,” she says, smiling that familiar soft smile that kind of makes him want to cry. “I want you to make the decision for  _ you.  _ You can still stay with me anytime you want, and if you ever need me, I’ll be there no matter what. Okay? I want this choice to be for you. Besides, it’s just training; your nights will still be free to spend with me if you want, and we can still keep up our own training when you have time.”

Tim nods slowly. He knows his mind is already made up, no matter how hard he tries to slam the breaks; he’s been thinking about what robin said that night on the rooftop, and the idea just won’t go away. He’d have resources, and knowledge, and— and people. People who, in all likelihood, would know his identity. Tim’s… never had people before. Stray has, but not Tim. Maybe it’s time that changed.

He swallows and looks up at the looming figure of Batman. “Is tomorrow okay?”

And, for the briefest moment, he thinks he sees a smile flash across the man’s stoic face. “Come to the front gate at 10:00 AM,” he says, and turns on his heel, sweeping away in the other direction. For a second, Robin lingers — just long enough to turn and grin at Tim, and for Tim to grin back with a mixture of excitement and anxiety buzzing between his teeth. In an instant, the two dark figures are gone, disappearing into the shadows of the city they watch over.

Tim looks up at Selina. “Is it really… okay?”

She smiles. “Honestly, I think training with them is a great idea; it’ll help keep you safe in the field and give you more people in your support network. Bats actually approached me about it before tonight, but he said he wanted to be the one to ask you. Dramatic bastard.” Tim can’t help but giggle, and Selina wraps an arm around his shoulders, tugging him into her side. “You won’t be able to take jobs while you’re working with them — but Bats has agreed to… let some things slide.”

Tim hums. “So I can steal stuff if he doesn’t find out about it. And do the food deliveries.”

“Among other things,” she says, nodding. “And your freedom won't be restricted. As far as we’re concerned, you’re not a Bat; just a trainee. You don’t have to follow their rules when you’re not in their house.”

“I mean, I wasn’t really planning on killing anyone regardless.”

“Perfect, then you’re all set.” Tim snorts and Selina grins. “Hey. You’re officially a Cat in Bat school. Why don’t we go home and celebrate?” She kisses the top of his head and he leans into her side. “I’m sure Despereaux will be happy for you. We can order Thai and watch a John Mulaney special.”

Tim grins. “Sounds pretty good to me.”


	7. Gatekeeping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Training? Bat-training. Tim is gonna start Bat-training. Holy shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short-but-necessary-chapter.
> 
> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 12  
> Jason - 15

Tim stares at the gate.

The gate stares back. It doesn’t have eyes or anything, don’t get him wrong — it’s just that it’s totally unmoved by his presence or attempts to engage.

Tim wants to tell it to fuck off, because a gate has no business being this intimidating. But what if Mr. Wayne or Mr. Pennyworth is listening over the security systems or something? Telling the gate to fuck off would be taken as rude, right? So he shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t.

“Oh, fuck off,” he huffs under his breath just moments later. He does this because he’s a dumbass, you see. It’s a chronic condition.

He presses the button on the little silver intercom on the stone post, and he doesn’t even say anything before another voice comes through. “Ah, hello, young man. Please do come in.” This is immediately followed by the sound of creaking iron.

Oh, sure,  _ now  _ it opens. Even after all the diplomacy Tim has shown it, turns out the gate still demands a figure with more authority. He takes his hand away from the button and quietly repeats his request that the gate fuck off as he shuffles through the new opening in the perimeter fence.

Tim is nervous. Of course he is — there are way too many things that could go wrong here. What if he’s been wrong this whole time? What if Bruce Wayne isn’t Batman and Tim is just going to walk into his house and have to explain himself? What if it was a test and he was supposed to refuse the offer for training? What if he left the stove on at home?

Okay, that last one is dumb, because he hasn’t touched the stove in Drake Mansion in months, but you get the idea. It's just… there are a lot of variables. Like, a  _ lot  _ of variables. No constants, no givens. Contrary to popular belief, math isn’t Tim’s strongest subject. This sucks.

He puts one foot on the first step of the front stoop and the door, which is massive and insanely ornate because of course it is, swings open at once. 

On the other side is a boy.

He’s bigger than Tim, taller and wider, but that isn’t really saying much. He’s also older, two or three years at most, although he probably thinks they’re about six years apart because Tim is twelve but still looks like he’s nine. 

And this all feels pretty familiar, doesn’t it? 

The hair is still curly, but more tamed now, combed into place carefully like he’d had somewhere to be today. The skin is the same soft brown, but the dusting of freckles across his nose is more pronounced in the daylight, more visible without his domino to get in the way.

The boy’s tan face opens into a wry, knowing smile. “Your hair is longer than I thought it was.”

Yeah, this is Robin, alright.

Tim can’t help it; a huge grin tweaks his lips and lights up his eyes. He holds out his hand. “My name’s Tim.”

The boy blinks at him, but then matches Tim’s grin and reaches out to grab his hand. “I’m Jason.”

_ Jason.  _ Huh. Tim rolls the name around in his mouth, memorizing the sharp features of the boy’s unmasked face, noting the flecks of green in his deep blue eyes. He doesn’t know why, but for some reason, it fits.  _ Jason.  _ This is Jason.

Robin —  _ Jason —  _ motions for Tim to come inside, so he does, stepping over the threshold into a foyer larger than the one in the Drake mansion, but somehow this one is… warmer. There’s a bank of cubbies built into one of the far walls; they’re stuffed with jackets and mittens, and below them over a dozen pairs of shoes are scattered around, recently disturbed if the fresh mud is anything to go by. The lighting is a soft orange that glows against calm beige, and there are— photos. Photos, paintings, drawings, things in frames hung up all along the walls, carefully dusted and straightened and displayed with pride. 

It looks like someone lives here.

And it occurs to Tim, rather suddenly, in fact, that someone  _ does  _ live here. That this is how people are supposed to live. Right.

Right. 

There’s a pull at his temple, and it snaps Tim back to himself, makes him stop gawking at the room and turn his attention to Jason — he’s gonna have to get used to that — who is tugging lightly at a free strand of black hair with an amused smirk. “Definitely longer than I thought. Never took you for a man-bun guy.”

Tim swats at his hand and grins, covering the small knot at the back of his head defensively. “Hey, it keeps it out of my eyes.”

Jason snorts. “Why not cut it?” He says, leading Tim around a corner and down a hallway. 

“How am I supposed to be dramatic without long hair to flip around?”

“Well, you keep it hidden with your cat ears, and you’re still plenty dramatic then.”

“Rich coming from you, bird boy,” Tim mutters, and Jason laughs as they emerge into a kitchen, smaller than Tim would’ve expected and very cozy. There’s a big window on the east-facing wall with a cushioned bench underneath it, and not too far from that, a round wooden table basking in the sunlight. 

At the table sits Bruce Wayne.

He’s talking quietly to Mr. Pennyworth, who is standing behind the kitchen counter chopping something on a cutting board. When the boys enter, both men pause their conversation and look up.

Tim takes a breath. He knows his manners very well, of course, but is this the kind of household where using them is considered awkward? That’s what Selina’s place is like, and a lot of places on TV, but this is a manor, so maybe it’s more like Tim’s parents’ house, where you either have manners or you’re the scum of the earth. There are a lot of hoops to jump through with societal convention. Tim decides to let Mr. Wayne make the first move

Mr. Wayne —  _ Batman,  _ Jesus Christ — rises to his feet, and holy shit, this man is a human tank. Quite possibly the largest person that Tim has ever seen, in fact. Why— why is he so huge? Like, yeah, okay, he’s Batman, but Batman is totally silent and 1000% light on his feet, and his cape and the darkness hide him perfectly. Is he really this big? Maybe it’s just that Tim is barely four-foot-five and weighs seventy pounds soaking wet. That might be it.

Bruceman— Batwayne— uh, Batman. Batman makes his way to Tim and smiles warmly, extending a massive hand. “So you’re Stray,” Batman says, and Tim’s brain flashes to hearing the exact same words last night. 

He tries to channel his bolder nighttime persona as he meets the man halfway and takes the offered hand. “Just Tim, please, sir. Tim Drake.”

Jason’s eyes narrow like he’s thinking about something, but Tim ignores him in favor of paying attention to the literal Batman who’s in front of him right now. The man is still smiling. “Bruce Wayne. Call me Bruce. It’s nice to meet you, Tim.”

Tim can only grin.

“Wait,” Jason says suddenly, his head snapping up. “Drake— like the people next door?”

Ah. Right. Tim laughs awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Uh. Yeah. They’re my— my parents.”

Jason’s eyes are bugging out of his skull. Tim bites down a nervous laugh. “So— so  _ they’re  _ the ones who let you walk around the city at night when you were  _ nine?”  _

Batman— Bruce, Bruce’s eyes widen a little at that, brow furrowing with some emotion that Tim doesn’t recognize, but it doesn’t look like anger. Unless he’s misjudged what anger looks like on people other than his mother and father. Surprise, maybe? That’s an option. 

A gentle hum comes from Tim’s left before he can answer, and he looks over to see Mr. Pennyworth walking around the counter, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. “Hello, Master Tim,” he says kindly, and Tim smiles as he shakes his hand, grateful for the distraction. It doesn’t last long. “Please do call me Alfred. Now, if my memory serves,” the old man says, sounding as if he has no doubt that his memory does, in fact, serve, “the Drakes have been in Tibet since before the last charity gala.”

Tim winces and Jason’s eyes widen. “That was over two months ago!” His head whips around to Tim, gaze accusatory and mildly horrified, for some reason. “You haven’t seen them since then?”

“I… well, no, but it’s no big deal. I’m staying with Selina.”

Jason looks like he’s about to argue further, but Alfred places a hand on his shoulder and hums an acknowledgement. “I see. Well, if ever Miss Kyle is unavailable, you are perfectly welcome here, my boy.”

Tim blinks. He doesn’t… he can’t mean that, right?

But Bruce Wayne is nodding like this is the most obvious thing in the world. “Of course. I have to help out on a case in Blüdhaven, so Jason was going to stay in tonight; you two can order a pizza or something later, if you like.”

“Oh,” Tim says, trying hard to keep the surprise out of his voice. Stay for dinner? It… well. It’s not like anybody will be waiting for him at home, right? “Oh. Oh! Uh, sure, yeah. If— if you’ll have me, I— that would be— yes. I, uh… I’d like that.” He bites down on his tongue in frustration after he gets the words out.  _ Way to sound like the genius you are, Tim. _

But the two adults are smiling, and Jason seems to have forgotten about Tim’s parents for the time being and is grinning back at him. “As long as I get to pick a movie,” he laughs, and then glances up at Bruce, who nods. Jason grabs Tim by the wrist and dashes off — he  _ is  _ much faster without the armor.

“Jason!” Tim yelps, startled as he’s dragged through unfamiliar halls. “Chill! Where are we going?” 

“The coolest place on earth for a nerd like you,” Jason replies lightly, and when they burst into a study and walk through a door inside a clock, Tim has to say he agrees.

It is  _ by far  _ the coolest place on earth for a nerd like him. 


	8. This House is a Fucking Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim meets a familiar face who offers him some pointers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey!! Just so you know, my uploads on all of my works (including Prudence in the Desert, which is already being written at a snail's pace, RIP) will be less frequent in these coming months now that I've started school. 
> 
> 💛, Blue
> 
> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 13  
> Jason - 15  
> Dick - 21

After two full weeks in the Batcave, Tim is informed that he actually hasn’t seen the Batcave. They needed to wait until they trusted him completely to let him see the real thing, and apparently Bruce has decided that today is that point. Tim is sure that means that the Batman has hacked into all the electronics Tim owns by now and has interviewed every person he knows to make sure he’s sure that Tim is who they think he is, both in terms of facts (son of Jack and Janet Drake, heir to their company, actually a teenager despite his size) and in terms of opinions (very bright, kindhearted, often overly polite with little hints of snark here and there), and whatever data the Bats managed to gather, it’s all consistent and solid enough for them. So Bruce and Jason and Alfred collect Tim, and then Bruce presses several buttons on the control console. The far wall of the cave, made entirely of the same jagged stone as the rest of the place, falls away, lowering slowly the hundreds of feet down into the floor.

Behind it is  _ everything.  _

First of all, there’s a T-Rex back there. Seriously, like— like a full-size dinosaur. Like. It’s huge. Teeth-the-size-of-Tim’s-forearm huge. He’s seen reconstructed fossils in museums and things, and the CG versions in  _ Jurassic Park _ , but this… 

“Holy fuck,” Tim mumbles, because that’s basically the only thought anywhere close to his brain right now. Someone responds with a tut of  _ language,  _ and Tim literally could not care less about it; there’s just too much else he has to pay attention to right now.

In part, the ( _ real _ , apparently) Batcave looks like a gallery. There’s a winding series of connected catwalks stretching across the interior of the rocky cavern, which is about fifteen times the size of the computer and training area that he’s been seeing this whole time. The floor of the cave is about half stone and half water — the lake half looks deep, like it might even create access outside through the river. The catwalks are situated high above the ground floor, but they’re all at different levels, connected by platform elevators that look suspiciously like they’re about to be Tim’s new favorite toy. Actually, scratch that —  _ everything  _ looks like it’s about to be Tim’s new favorite toy. The huge training arena, the open workshop benches strewn with tools, the garage area packed full of Batmobiles and Batplanes and Bat-motorcycles or whatever, the—

Oh. Holy  _ fuck. _

The _ computer.  _

Tim lets out an audible gasp when he lays eyes on it. It’s massive, first of all; there are various control consoles all over the place that must be for operating specific areas of the cave, but the giant terminal in the middle of it all looks like the real brain of this place. The screen is movie-theater size, somewhat curved to be able to completely fill the field of view of a single person sitting in the middle, in a chair that may as well be a goddamn throne as far as Tim’s concerned. Beneath the screen sits the computer itself. It’s packed into an enormous console — Tim finds himself reminded of the movie  _ Inside Out —  _ with a few glass panels on the sides that are clearly only there to showcase how absolutely  _ gorgeous  _ the inner workings are. Definitely the prettiest motherboards Tim has ever seen, and he has to make 100%  _ sure  _ he never says that sentence out loud. 

“Oh my god,” he whispers, ignoring the racing of his heart as he stares at this technological marvel. How the fuck did they make this? 

A voice finally pierces through his mildly drunken haze. “The Batcomputer,” Bruce says, stepping up beside Tim. There’s a smile in his voice. “I thought you might like that.”

“He is a nerd, after all,” Jason snorts, and Tim can practically hear Alfred raising an amused eyebrow. “Just like you, B.”

The smile doesn’t go away, even when Bruce huffs a, “Yeah, yeah.” Tim reaches a hand towards the machine even though he’s well over a hundred yards away from where it’s situated on a wide, circular platform in the center of the Cave. In an instant, though, he retracts his hand, his face heating up because shit, this is definitely not his toy to mess up. This thing has to be crazy important — there’s no way they’ll let Tim touch it, and no reason they  _ should  _ let him touch it. Training or not, Tim is still an outsider at the end of the day — it makes sense that he won’t be trusted with the giant supercomputer. He shouldn’t take the chance of trying to touch it now and never being allowed to again.

But then Bruce says, “C’mon, we’ll show you,” and squeezes Tim’s shoulder before walking ahead towards the computer, and holy shit, he’s actually headed that direction, he might actually be serious right now. Really? Could he really… no way. Right? Holy shit. Holy  _ shit. _

“Uh… you good there, Timbo?”

Tim blinks and tries not to startle at the mild concern in Jason’s stare. “Oh! Oh, yeah, yes, I’m fine, I just, um. Am I… are you sure you’re okay with me touching it? I don’t want to break it.”

Jason snorts and shoves Tim’s shoulder, forcing him to stumble a few steps forward, which his feet automatically turn into walking mere seconds later. Stupid. “Dude, that thing can take a hit from the Batmobile without a scratch. You wouldn’t be able to break it even if you tried.”

“I wouldn’t try!” Tim crows immediately, trying to look his friend in the eye over his shoulder. “I don’t want to damage—”

“I know, dumbass,” Jason laughs quietly, and he flicks the back of Tim’s head. “Just chill. This is no big deal.”

“Kinda feels like a big fucking deal,” Tim grumbles, swiping at his friend in retaliation and remaining unsurprised when the boy effortlessly ducks under the attack. 

And honestly, it is. Bruce lets him look through the clear panels and babble incoherently about the wiring, and very patiently answers all of his mile-a-minute questions as he flits around the console obsessively gathering the specs. 

Tim is, shockingly, about to ask another question when a new voice cuts in from less than two yards behind him. “It’s pretty cool, huh?”

Listen, Tim winds up on top of the Batcomputer because he wants to investigate it, not because he jumps ten feet from being startled and clings to the nearest object. And that yelp was totally an exclamation of excitement, not a shriek of terror. That’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

When he does look up, though, it’s to several new developments. First of all, Bruce is peering up at him with a mildly impressed expression, which makes a very tiny shred of pride dance in Tim’s stomach. Second of all, Jason is literally on the ground laughing, although Tim would probably sooner refer to it as  _ totally losing his shit.  _ Third of all, Alfred, as always, remains calm and collected, albeit with a vaguely amused smile. 

And finally, Dick Grayson is standing right there. 

_ Dick fucking Grayson.  _

And Tim just shrieked and jumped to the top of the computer. Of course. Not like he was Tim’s childhood hero or anything. No big deal.

Fuck his life, man.

“Hi there,” the man says, brows raised high as his eyes flicker between Jason on the floor and Tim atop the screen. “You must be Jason’s friend.”

Tim blinks. Jason laughs harder.

Tim can’t help it; he groans, long and loud, and bangs his forehead against the edge of the screen that he’s perched on. “You’re Dick Grayson,” he sighs miserably.

He can’t see him, but the surprise is audible in the man’s voice. “Oh. Uh. Yeah, I am.” He must turn to Bruce, because the next thing he says is, “Did you tell him?”

“No,” Bruce says, and Tim thinks he might hear some warmth there. “He did some detective work himself and found us both out. When he was nine.”

Tim groans again. Jason is cackling. 

“Y’know?” Dick Grayson sighs, “I can’t even be surprised anymore. I have no idea where you find these kids.”

“This one found us,” Bruce says, and the warmth is definitely there now. The pride in Tim’s stomach flares a little brighter.

“Huh,” Dick says, and he looks up at Tim, who’s finally convinced himself to lift his head. “What’s your name, kid?”

_ Show some respect, you indolent child,  _ his mother says in his head, and he shoves back the urge to roll his eyes while also conceding the point. She’s right about this one — not that he’s indolent, just that he should probably have better manners when meeting  _ the actual Nightwing.  _ Christ.

He leaps to the ground from the top of the computer and stands in front of the man, trying to force confidence into his movements as he gives a lopsided grin and extends a hand. “I’m Tim,” he says, and his voice doesn’t even crack when he speaks. He’ll take all the wins he can get, thanks.

Dick smiles — the original Robin is  _ smiling  _ at  _ Tim,  _ holy  _ fuck —  _ and takes the offered hand. “And I’m Dick. But I see you already know that.” Dick drops Tim’s hand and folds his arms, considering the boy thoughtfully. “So, are you the next Bat-partner? Are you both gonna do it now?” He asks, directing it to both Tim and Jason. 

Jason rolls his eyes, and Tim can’t help but think that there was a bit too much tension in that exchange for this to be a normal relationship. Hm. He’ll have to ask Alfred about it later; the butler only ever speaks the truth, and he claims to be unbothered by, if not enjoy, Tim’s questions.

“No, I, uh…” Tim glances at Jason, who gives a small smirk. “I’m more of a Cat person, myself.”

Dock blinks. “Oh.” He turns to Bruce, brow furrowed. “When did Selina get a protege?”

“Long time ago,” Jason says, a bit more quietly than normal. “He’ll tell you the whole story later.”

Tim raises an eyebrow. “I will?”

“You got something better to do?” Jason says, and when he looks at Tim his face lifts some, brightens from a gray shadow to a more open space.

Tim snorts. “Guess not.”

“You might,” Bruce says, seemingly from nowhere, and he gives Tim a look that the boy can’t read. Tim and Jason glance at each other, brows furrowed identically. 

What the hell does  _ that  _ mean?

Twenty minutes later, Tim has found out what it means:  _ you are definitely about to get your ass handed to you. _

Which is why he now finds himself on the training mats to spar  _ Dick fucking Grayson.  _

“I cannot stress enough how not good this is about to be,” Tim says as he pulls on a set of more skin-friendly claws, and Jason snorts. 

“You’ll be fine. He won’t actually hurt you.”

“That’s maybe the actual last thing I’m worried about.”

Jason raises an eyebrow. “What  _ are  _ you worried about, then? There’s not a lot else going on in a spar.”

“I’m not  _ worried,”  _ Tim huffs, flexing his hands and picking up his whip to check it over. They decided that weapons are allowed “for this first one”, as Bruce had put it, and the notion of more than one spar just has Tim wanting to climb back on top of the computer and die. “I’m psyching myself up.”

“Uh huh. For what?”

“To get my ass kicked by my literal childhood hero.”

Jason laughs. Tim scowls. That’s another theme, isn’t it? 

Shoving Robin’s shoulder playfully and also with mild terror, Tim makes his way to the mats, where Dick is already standing, talking quietly to Bruce about something while stretching out his triceps. Dick Grayson isn’t a particularly big person, and he’s only twenty-one years old, but when compared to Tim nearly everyone on earth looks massive. He’s twice Tim’s weight and has almost a foot of height on him, and really, this is absolutely ridiculous. Tim normally relies on speed and acrobatics to win fights, but in this instance it won’t help him; he has no doubt that Dick is a better gymnast than him and is more than fast enough to counter anything Tim can jab at him. 

Tim just sighs and flexes his hands. This is definitely not going to go well.

Bruce calls  _ go,  _ and in an instant, Tim is on the defensive, but he’d expected that. In fact, he plans to be on the defensive for basically this entire fight, because he expects to not have any other option. He immediately has to duck under a rogue escrima stick and darts sideways, trying to stay towards the edges of the mat. He can’t step over — that’s an automatic loss — but giving himself more room to work is probably his best shot at not getting totally destroyed. 

Dick is back at him in the next second, and Tim moves to jump up and over him, but at the apex of his leap he’s moving just slow enough for Dick to get a jab in at his exposed stomach. It’s a pulled punch, clearly, judging by Tim’s ability to immediately tuck and roll into a solid landing. That’s a hit that would likely kill him in a real fight.  _ Shit. _

Tim shifts his feet and lowers himself close to the floor; his center of mass will do him more good if it’s not about to drop him several feet when it’s knocked off balance. Dick advances again and Tim darts out of the way, pulling his whip and cracking it out as fast as he can. To his surprise, it actually wraps around Dick’s ankle, but Tim refuses to think about it, refuses to do anything but grip the handle and roll hard. He hears a grunt and an  _ oof,  _ and Dick Grayson is on the ground. It’s for the briefest instant, sure, but it’s something. It’s a hit. Tim got in a hit!

A whoop from the sidelines tells him that Jason is rooting for him. He shoves back the crooked grin that wants to tweak his lips; first of all, he doesn’t want to get too cocky, and second of all, that grin has only ever meant chaos on his end.

Somehow, Tim gets in more hits. Not many, and not particularly good ones, but hits nonetheless. Dick still absolutely hands his ass right back to him, but Tim ends up holding his own way better than he thought he would. And he’ll take what he can get.

When Dick finally decides to pin him (although it’s pretty clear he could’ve done it in three seconds if he’d wanted to) and Bruce calls the end of the spar, Tim looks up to find Dick grinning at him, one hand reached out to help him up. Tim grins back, unable to stop himself and focusing on just shoving back that chaos again, and takes the hand, letting the man pull him to his feet.

“That was great!” Dick says, holding out a fist for Tim to bump. “You’ve got some real talent, kid.”

Tim thinks he may have never beamed brighter in his life.

Dick tweaks his head, considering him. “Hey,” hey hums, “have you ever used a bo staff?”

Tim raises an eyebrow and glances over at Jason, who’s approaching the place where they’re standing on the mats with apparent curiosity. “Uh, no,” Tim says, meeting the man’s gaze somewhat blankly. “Why?”

Dick shrugs, but he’s smiling. “I think you would like it. It gives you the reach of that whip but a lot more power and control. Trust me, I get what it’s like to try to fight guys twice and three-times your size; having that extra leverage really helps.”

Tim blinks. “Oh.” That… would help, actually. He’d kinda forgotten that the first Robin had been pretty small. Not quite as tiny as Tim, but small enough that he would’ve needed to make adjustments for a lack of physical strength. Maybe Tim  _ should _ try a bo staff — he thinks he’s seen one in a martial arts movie before. It’s a long stick, right? He can probably learn to use a long stick.

“Not a bad idea,” Bruce hums from the sidelines, and Tim has a feeling he’ll have a long stick in hand by tomorrow.

Dick nods distantly, looking out towards the stairs. “Well, I should get going. I have to be back in Blüdhaven by six.” He starts walking away, but pauses and turns back with a kind smile on his face. “It was nice to meet you, Tim. Bye, Jason. I’ll see you two around.”

Tim blinks, and notices Jason blinking, too, like he hadn’t expected Dick to say anything to him. This exchange between the Robins reads a lot differently from the other one — what changed between now and then? It was less than an hour ago. 

“Uh, yeah. Nice to meet you, too,” Tim remembers to say a moment later, and Jason remembers at the same time and nods quickly, and Dick Grayson gives them an odd smile and walks up the stairs.

Jason and Tim stare after him for a long moment. 

Finally, Jason’s brow furrows and he frowns. “Okay,” he says slowly, “I, uh… don’t know what to do with that.”

“Was that— I mean— was it a  _ good _ interaction or not?” Tim mumbles.

“I can’t tell.” Jason hums and turns to Tim, and his face suddenly lights up with a grin. “Kinda fun to watch him kick your ass, though.”

Tim tries to scowl, but he can’t fight back the crooked tug at his lips. Eventually he just gives in to it. Judging by the way Jason’s eyes spark, Tim guesses that his grin looks about as chaotic as always. “I’ll get him next time.”

“Yeah, bet,” Jason snorts, and he throws his arm around Tim’s shoulders, beginning to drag him down one of the catwalks towards a bunch of suits and artifacts displayed in glass cases. “Now c’mon, alley cat. You gotta see the rest of the Cave!”

Tim laughs and tosses his arm around his friend’s shoulders in turn. The grin never leaves his face.


	9. The Cake is the Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aren't these things just movie props?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lmao remember me?
> 
> Full disclosure: I'm currently applying to college. As it turns out, applying to college is not something they designed to be fun. They did, however, design it to be the most time-consuming fucking thing in the world. Yay!!
> 
> I went back and made it so that in the first chapter of this story, Tim was twelve and Jason was fifteen. I'm not sure exactly why I wanted there to be a slightly bigger age difference between them, but I decided it was better that way, so that's a thing now.
> 
> Not gonna lie, it's likely that my posts will still be pretty few and far between. I wish they could be more frequent but I'm so busy with exams and schoolwork and apps that it just isn't altogether realistic right now. Hopefully soon, though!
> 
> Thank you for your kindness and patience :)
> 
> \---
> 
> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 13  
> Jason - 16

Tim walks into the manor one day in August and something is different. 

The air is lighter than it usually is, softer, and the entryway is less organized. More of the window curtains are open than normal, flooding the foyer with a rare instance of natural light in Gotham, and it glints off the worn floor tiles with a happy little bounce.

Tim frowns. He loves Wayne manor, and the people who live here are slowly becoming familial figures to him, but  _ happy  _ still probably isn’t the word to describe this building. Warm, cozy, various positive adjectives, sure — but happy? 

Tim frowns harder. “Jason?” He says evenly, careful not to raise his voice too high lest he bother someone. He receives no response, so he climbs the stairs out of the foyer and up to the  _ home _ part of the house, the part that isn’t used for various events with weird adult-speak. 

Real quick, can Tim just say how weird galas are? Like — he dresses up as a cat and either fights crime or commits it every night, right? So Tim knows weird. He  _ knows  _ weird, and galas are fucking weird. They’re like ballets of social norms pressed to their extremes, of lying that everyone sees through but accepts anyway. He’d always hated them when he was a kid. There were never any at Drake mansion — his parents were pretty antisocial, and anyway they never spent much time at that house — but he’d been brought along to plenty of them at the various residences of the Gotham elite as a conversation piece or a status symbol. Galas had always been filled with old ladies pinching his cheeks and old men telling him about whose daughter was  _ ripe for the picking  _ (gross), and then his mother’s nails digging into his shoulders and his father’s beer breath punctuating flippant dismissals. Fake laughter is expected and obscure trivia about people’s relatives is currency. So the whole thing is just fucking weird. But Tim digresses.

When he emerges into the kitchen, he’s met with the sight of something unfamiliar. On the countertop sits a wide brown cylinder balanced on a plate, some words that he can’t read from here scrawled on the face. A bunch of colorful sticks are poking out of the top — candles, Tim realizes, and very suddenly it occurs to him what this is.

He walks closer, eyes wide with curiosity. It’s just like the ones he’s seen on TV — frosting is layered in artful swaths across the surface, and loopy red letters on the top read  _ Happy Birthday, Jason!  _ Tim counts sixteen candles in total. Isn’t that a rom-com? He’s pretty sure he caught the tail end of it on the Hallmark channel one time. Whatever.

He wants to touch the thing, to feel the texture of the frosting and the waxy twists of the candles, but he carefully stops himself — it’s not his to touch. Instead, he just stares, tilting his head to get new angles, to familiarize himself with the smell and theorize about the internal structure, because Tim always feels the need to overthink when presented with new information. What  _ is  _ on the inside, though? Is it solid or hollow? Does the frosting go all the way through? Is there frosting inside at all? Is it—

“Christ, man, it’s not a two-headed snake or anything.”

Tim looks up. Jason is making his way through the kitchen doorway and across the room to the stools at the countertop, one of which he pulls out and plops himself into with a  _ thud _ . Tim blinks at him. “Two-headed snake?”

Jason’s left eyebrow lifts high. “I mean you’re looking at it like it’s the weirdest shit you’ve ever seen. It’s just a cake.”

Tim hums. “Yeah…” He clears his throat and manages to switch his focus from the cake to Jason, pulling his eyes away after a long moment. “Uh, yeah. Right.”

When he looks up, Jason is staring at him, gears visibly turning in his brain. Half of Tim wants to cringe away and the other half wants to ask what’s wrong, so of course he settles for raising his eyebrows and saying nothing.

Finally, Jason blinks, groans, and drops his forehead down onto the counter. “You’ve never seen a birthday cake,” he says flatly.

Tim glances back at the cake, feeling distinctly exposed. “Well, no, not in person, but like… it’s not like most people have, either.”

Jason’s head snaps up, eyes wide and mildly horrified. “What— yes, they have!”

Tim frowns. “On TV they have, sure, but not—”

“Wait, no, Tim,” Jason says quickly, effectively shutting him up. The boy is on his feet in a flash, but then he hesitates, standing beside the stool with discomfort written all over his face. “You do know that birthday cakes are a thing, right? Like, a real-life thing? Not just on TV?”

Tim blinks. 

Jason searches his face, and he must find something, because in the next second the boy’s shoulders tense up to his ears. “Tim, have you even… have you ever celebrated your birthday? When is it?”

Tim frowns. Birthday celebrations are a thing, now, too? Is he living in a movie? “I mean… no,” he says slowly, trying to figure out exactly what’s upsetting Jason so much. The whole celebration thing must be something only a few families do — it’s like a holiday tradition unique to one household. Right? “It’s July 19th, but—”

“You mean it  _ already passed?”  _ Jason yelps, sounding utterly scandalized. “That was a month ago! Why didn’t you say anything?” His eyes are wide and round like a kicked puppy, and what the hell is Tim, a Cat, supposed to do with those? That’s ridiculous. 

“...Because it’s not a big deal?” Tim huffs, growing more confused by the second. “Besides, we had barely started training by then; it wouldn't have made sense to tell you. And just because you do the TV celebration thing doesn’t mean I have to.”

“Tim, it isn’t a TV thing,” Jason says slowly, emphasizing every word. “Everyone celebrates their birthday. I still did it when I lived on the street. Hell, my mom would even try to be sober for it.”

And just… what?

Tim scans the kid’s face, searching for a hint of something that might tell him this is a trick or a joke or whatever, but he doesn’t— he doesn’t find—… it isn’t there. It isn’t there.

He’s serious. 

The dots connect easily — they always have for Tim. The little cards and invitations kids used to hand each other in the lunchroom, the new clothes or phones or whatever that people show off at school all of a sudden, the goofy photos of the same person that everyone puts up on their Instagram stories on the same day — it all falls into place. 

Tim feels his shoulders slump a fraction of an inch before he can catch them, feels his face fall just slightly before he can school his features into something indifferent, into something that won’t show this familiar thing he’s feeling that he’s never been able to put a name to. If he had to call it something, though, he’d probably call it  _ of course.  _

Of course. Of course this is just something else to divide him from his peers, of course this is just another thing his parents refused to be there for, of course this is just one more childhood staple he’s finding out about far too late. Tim is thirteen now — practically an adult — so of course now that he knows about it, it’s off the table. Of course he’s too late. Of course. 

Apparently he hadn’t controlled his expressions fast enough, because he hears a quiet mumble of  _ Jesus, kid,  _ and then Jason is right in front of him with a half-scowl on his face. His hand darts out and snags Tim’s wrist before he suddenly drags him to the kitchen counter, shoving him unceremoniously up onto a stool. “Sit,” Jason commands, as if Tim isn’t already doing that. 

Tim frowns. “Okay? Why?”

“Because.” Jason opens a drawer, pulling out two forks. “We’ll only turn thirteen and sixteen once, kid, so we gotta celebrate it. Here,” He hands Tim one of the forks while keeping the other for himself. “Commence operation: make up for Tim’s shitty childhood.”

Tim can’t help the snort that escapes him, but he coughs to try and cover it, which only serves to make it more obvious, so he’s got that going for him. He takes the fork and flattens out his smile. “What’s this for?”

Jason looks at him like he’s maybe the dumbest person alive “For the cake, stupid. It’s not gonna eat itself.”

Oh.  _ Oh.  _ Tim’s eyes flicker back and forth between the desert on the counter and the utensil in his hand. “Wait, no, but—” he says, his brain struggling to process all these new developments, genius as he is. He swallows and tries again, eyes wide and fixed on the other boy. “But today is  _ your  _ birthday.”

Jason’s scowl softens slightly, just enough for Tim to notice, before the boy raises a snarky eyebrow. “Yeah, but yours was less than a month ago, so that’s basically today.” He closes the utensil drawer, flashes an only mildly manic grin at Tim, and jabs his fork dead-center into the top of the cake. And then —  _ and then  _ — the madman scoops out a chunk of it, completely removes the piece bearing the  _ r  _ of  _ birthday,  _ and boldly shoves it into his mouth, scattering crumbs everywhere. 

“You’re insane,” Tim whispers, eyes wide with horror. “Why wouldn’t you cut it first? Alfred’s gonna kill you!”

“Alfred can’t  _ touch  _ me,” Jason whispers back, grinning wide and chaotic. Isn’t that supposed to be Tim’s thing? “He can’t touch  _ either  _ of us. And you wanna know  _ why?” _

Tim swallows. “...Why?”

Jason’s grin turns wolfish and wicked. “Because it’s our  _ birthday.” _

Tim can only stare. Is  _ that  _ what it means to have a birthday? That you can just do whatever you want with no consequences? Like, he could sit in whatever seat he wanted at the dinner table? He could stay up all night reading and it would be fine? He could— he could buy  _ candy  _ and put it in the pantry and nobody could even get mad at him? 

His eyes spark with understanding, and in his brain, only one thought runs on a loop:  _ holy shit.  _

His frozen gaze darts up to meet Jason’s. Grin still in place, the boy nods slowly. 

Tim looks at the cake, then at his fork, then back to Jason, who only nods again.

He takes a deep breath.

He lifts his arm.

With determination ringing in his very bones, Tim plunges the fork into the top of the cake. The  _ a  _ of  _ birthday  _ is brazenly ripped from the surface. It disappears into Tim’s mouth. 

It tastes like heaven.

Tim looks up with wide eyes. His friend’s grin softens into something more familiar, something more solid, and Tim’s chest feels warm and full and — dare he say it — complete. 

It feels like heaven, too. 

Jason nods with satisfaction and suddenly turns and bolts out the door. Tim raises an eyebrow, but he’s kind of too lost in the feeling of comfort in his chest to pay much attention. Some amount of time later — it might’ve been a few seconds or a few hours, Tim honestly can’t tell — his friend returns, holding something behind his back. 

“Here,” he says, pushing something rectangular into Tim’s hands. His face is turned down, and Tim recognizes the slight color to his skin as an actual blush. With confused, narrowed eyes, Tim looks down at the object in his hands, and he feels his breath catch.

It’s a book. Maybe the thickest one he’s ever seen that isn’t a textbook. The hardback is brand-new, the cream-colored cover trimmed with little flowers that come up to encircle a drawing of a young woman in a puffy pink dress. Above the drawing is one word:  _ Emma.  _

“It’s my favorite,” Jason mumbles, clearly trying not to be embarrassed. “Thought you might like it. I was gonna save it for you for Christmas, but now seems like a better time.”

Tim’s thumb traces along the flowers at the edge, feeling the slight indentation in the material. “I…” he tries, but his mouth feels dry, too many thoughts swirling in his head. “What is… What’s it for?”

Jason looks up at him, apparently having quelled his embarrassment, though there’s still a pink tint high on his cheeks. “It’s a birthday present?” he says, but something is off in his voice, some odd current running under the confusion. It sounds almost… sad.

Tim barely hears it. His mind is racing. “I’ve never gotten—” he starts without thinking, but then quickly snaps his mouth shut around the rest of the words. Jason doesn’t need to hear them.

Apparently the boy heard them anyway. A forkful of cake appears in front of Tim and he blinks, bewildered, tearing his eyes away from the cover of the book to instinctively take hold of the utensil. “Well, now you have,” his friend says, grinning despite the hint of sorrow in his eyes. “Which means this is your first official party. So we’re celebrating. Come on!” Jason picks up the cake by the plate and dashes from the kitchen, and Tim scrambles to follow, tucking his book close to his chest and bolting up the stairs after the older boy. Jason turns on a dime into a room down the hall and by the time Tim gets there, the mostly-intact cake is perched on the coffee table and Jason is digging through a pile of DVDs. 

“Start collecting blankets,” he says, pulling  _ Wall-E  _ out of its case. “It’s time for the ultimate rite of passage: the blanket fort.”

Tim grins wide.

Hours later, after they’ve filled their fort with board games and flashlights and pillows, after they’ve made their way through six movies and a half-dozen bags of candy and the entire cake, after they’ve been thoroughly scolded by Alfred for the truly remarkable mess they’ve made, Tim is still grinning so wide his face hurts. 

“Happy birthday, Jay,” he mumbles as he’s falling asleep, his book sprawled open on his chest.

“You too, Timbo.” His friend grins back and tousles his hair. “And it was.”


	10. The Day Regina George Died

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gotham City's very own Mean Girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this chapter:
> 
> Tim - 13  
> Jason - 16  
> Dick - 21

The arrival of September marks about five months since Tim met Jason, and about two months since they started training together. 

It also marks the start of the school year. And as it turns out, Tim and Jason go to the same one. 

Tim hasn’t been in the upper school until this year — he’s a freshman while Jason is a junior — so it makes sense that they haven’t met before now, but he still kind of wishes that they had. It might’ve been fun to know each other as Tim and Jason separately from Stray and Robin, if only to see the differences. But with things being as they are, he’s actually got a big problem here.

This is because Tim Drake, you see, is known as a total dweeb. In and of itself, that isn’t entirely unfair — Tim is a huge nerd and willing to admit it — but here, any deviation from the norm is basically social suicide. And Tim takes a lot of classes online through Gotham University, so he spends most of his time sitting in the library instead of in actual classrooms. Plus, he skipped a grade a few years back, so he’s the youngest and smallest kid in his class. All of that means that he not only looks too smart, but he also looks fragile, lonely and antisocial. In summary, he looks like a total dweeb. And as far as middle- and high-schoolers are concerned, total dweebs get bullied.  _ Bad _ .

The bullying isn’t the problem, though; the problem is that this year, there’s someone around to see it. Jason is popular — a combination of smart and athletic that makes him overall well-known and well-liked. Tim is distinctly unpopular because, again, he’s a total dweeb. He cannot stress enough how much of a dweeb he is in this situation. It’s severe. Like —  _ severe- _ severe.

Tim has done his best to keep the bullying thing from Jason. It’s not that he  _ wants  _ to, really, or that he’s trying to keep secrets — it’s just that the kids doing the bullying are, uh… they may or may not be Jason’s friends? And Tim doesn’t want to mess anything up in that regard. Tim himself has never really hung out with anyone, so it’s not like this is especially new to him, and for all he knows Jason has worked really hard to build all these relationships; Tim isn’t about to ruin them. 

Tim doesn’t blame Jason for having kinda iffy friends. That’s just high school, y’know? Jason probably doesn’t even know they’re iffy, and Tim sure as hell isn’t gonna be the one to tell him. Besides, why would he care if he did? Those are Jason’s  _ friends _ , and if Tim’s learned anything, it’s that Robin II is nothing if not loyal. He’s known these people far longer than he’s known Tim; it only makes sense that he’ll take their side if he finds out about the abuse. So Tim’s decided there’s no harm in keeping it to himself. 

He feels the back of his neck suddenly prickle and sighs. Okay, so maybe there’s a little harm in it.

“Whatcha up to, there, Drake?” 

Oh, awesome. Yep. Good shit. This? Yeah, this is the good shit. Here we go.

Tim pulls a few inches away from his locker and valiantly withholds a sigh. He doesn’t have to turn around to recognize the voice of Trevor Morneau overlaid atop those of his various chittering hench-boys or whatever they are. Tim can’t say he’s a fan, but he knows this kid is at least sort of a friend of Jason’s — they’re in the same grade and share a class — and that means Tim can’t mess with him too much.

“What do you want, Trevor?” Tim mumbles, and he means for it to sound either fearful (for his cover’s sake) or defiant (for his pride’s sake), but it just comes out as tired, because that’s what he is.

“Well, that’s no way to address your elders, now is it?” The kid sneers, and damn, Tim is really being talked down to by a sixteen-year-old with a rat-ass moustache. Trevor takes three steps forward (despite the fact that Tim is only two steps away) and gets directly into the younger boy’s space, which is honestly just uncomfortable. “You talk to your mommy that way?”

Tim just keeps his mouth shut; he knows how this goes. The kids say some shit, maybe ruffle his feathers a bit, and then they get bored and leave him alone. As long as he doesn’t antagonize them, he should be fine.

“Aw, the little freak’s quiet today,” Trevor hums, and something in the way his tone shifts gives Tim pause. That… doesn’t sound like he’s getting bored. “Don’t you know you best speak when spoken to?”

Tim does know that. He’s been raised on that ideology very thoroughly, in fact, although Selina and Bruce keep telling him that there’s no such thing as talking out of turn. Still, in this instance, what little pride he retains wins out. He looks up at Trevor, his mouth firmly closed, and stares silently. The boy’s nose wrinkles, which isn’t a surprise — Tim had often been told not to look people straight-on as a child, because his eyes were so intense as to be disturbing. Jason says he only looks intense like that when he’s uncomfortable, though. He also says it’s not actually creepy or unsettling, but Tim isn’t so sure about that part. His parents had been pretty clear.

Tim keeps staring and bites at his lip when Trevor shakes off the weariness and pulls together his facade of nonchalance. “Don’t wanna chat with us, huh?” The kid tilts his head, a wolfish grin stretching his lips. “Then I guess we’ll just have to make you.”

Tim doesn’t brace for the punch. Maybe he’s an idiot for that, but in his defense, he hadn’t seen it coming. Okay, maybe he’s an idiot for that, too, but really, he hadn’t expected physical violence from these boys. Normally the worst they do is knock his books out of his hands or shoulder him out of the way. Christ, who put a stick up Trevor’s ass this morning? It certainly wasn’t Tim.

Regardless, it’s Tim who feels the punch. It finds a home in the top half of his stomach and forces all the air from his lungs — he can’t stop himself from doubling over or from staggering backwards, his shoulder blade connecting sharply with the thin metal of the lockers, which let out a  _ thunk  _ of protest.

_ Shit,  _ Tim thinks, sealing his lips around harsh coughs that then rattle painfully in his chest. His heart rate is elevated, he notices, albeit just slightly — he’s kind of an adrenaline junkie as it is, so this isn’t enough to make his body lose its shit. All the same, what he’d said to Jason a few months ago on a rooftop had been true: Tim Drake is absolutely tiny. He’s barely brushing four-foot-five and even after all his recent weight-lifting, he’s still clocking in at only seventy pounds. These kids have three years, over a foot, and eighty pounds on him. Sure, maybe they won’t be able to punch him to death as easily as those Penguin thugs could’ve, but a solid enough hit from them could still do some serious damage. And because of his cover, Tim can’t even do anything to stop them.

The next punch lands right below his left eye. He lets his head snap back with the blow because holding it in place would’ve made it even worse, but he still winces when his right temple slams against the lockers. It isn’t a pulled punch. Tim can feel the familiar stinging at his cheekbone even as the prickling numbness of adrenaline tries to cover it up, and he knows that it’ll be a bruise later. 

Oh, shit, wait, he’s supposed to meet up with Jason right now — they were gonna train together after school. Tim will have to tell him that he got the bruise while on patrol or something — he hates lying to Jason, but it’s better than putting him in a position of having to pick a side between his friends. 

He’s too lost in thought to brace for the third punch, so when the back of his head cracks against the metal and he feels his lip split open, he barely stops himself from grunting with the impact. But once again, he manages to keep his mouth closed, and the tiny victory of it makes him smile just slightly. 

Apparently that isn’t the reaction that Trevor is looking for.

The kid’s face screws up in annoyance and he balls the front of Tim’s shirt up in his fist — damn, he needs to cut his nails — and yanks the smaller boy forward. Tim’s feet are barely on the floor anymore, just his tip-toes balancing his weight precariously on the tile as Trevor leers down at him. “You think something’s funny?” He barks, an ugly smile curling around his teeth, which, by the way, are definitely unbrushed, if Tim’s nose has anything to say about it. Ew. 

Ignoring the taste of copper from his lip, Tim resumes the standard drill: stare ‘creepily’ and stay silent. The older boy raises his free fist, and Tim starts bracing for another punch.

_ “Hey!” _

There’s an jarring impact, a surprised  _ oof  _ that doesn’t belong to Tim, and the pressure at the top of his chest disappears, the fabric of his shirt pulling harshly before snapping back, ruffled with finger-sized folds and indents. Without the foundation of his feet under him, Tim is off-balance and his knees smack on linoleum as collapses to the floor in a startled heap, blinking blankly for a moment until it occurs to him that maybe he should figure out what the fuck just happened.

He looks up and can only blink again. 

Jason is here.  _ Shit.  _

Tim really hadn’t wanted Jason to have to get involved in this. As Robin, his job is to protect the victim and bring the wrongdoers to justice in any given situation, and in this instance, Tim and these bullies  _ do  _ fit those respective bills. Which means that Jason will feel obligated to help Tim even though Trevor is his friend. Awesome.

It’s always fun to put your friends in shit positions, huh?

Tim focuses and takes in his surroundings enough to note that Jason is standing in front of him, separating him from Trevor. His friend’s shoulders are tense and his hands are curled into fists at his sides, and he’s facing away from Tim, not looking at him. Tim should— he should get up. He should intervene, should tell Jason he doesn’t need to do this, should— he should at least look up, right? To see their faces? He should.  _ Look up, Drake. Look up, just— _

“What the  _ fuck  _ do you think you’re doing?” A familiar voice spits out, and Tim flinches instinctively, cutting off his own train of thought. His eyes snap to the back of Jason’s head, and— oh.

Jason actually doesn’t have his back turned all the way — he’s standing kind of twisted, just enough that he can keep half an eye on Tim while he faces the bullies. Tim can see his face.

Jason looks absolutely  _ murderous.  _ And his anger isn’t directed at Tim. 

Trevor tries to scoff, but it comes out a bit choked. He laughs a little too nervously. “What’s the deal, man? We’re just showing the little freak his place.” The kid turns his head a few degrees over his shoulder. “Might still need a few more beat-downs,” he mutters, and the assortment of lackeys behind him reward the comment with a range of forced and fake and awkward laughter. Trevor clearly can’t tell how aggressively all these boys are just trying to get on his good side. 

Jason takes a lightning-quick stride right into Trevor’s space, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him forward until their noses are almost touching. The laughter dies out as if someone has flipped a switch on it. 

“Listen to me very carefully, asshole, cuz I’m only gonna say this once,” Jason says slowly, his voice razor-sharp with cold fury. Trevor stares at him with pinprick pupils. “If you even  _ think  _ about laying a hand on my little brother ever again, I  _ will  _ make you wish you’d never been born. Do I make myself clear?”

Trevor doesn’t respond, apparently shocked, but Tim is the one who’s completely frozen, unable to move or speak or in any way comprehend this turn of events. 

Jason doesn’t accept the delay. He bares his teeth and shakes the boy once, hard enough to jerk his head back. “I said  _ do I fucking make myself clear?”  _ He snarls. 

Trevor swallows and nods frantically. Jason scoffs and releases his collar, shoving him back and making him stumble. “Good. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”

The boys don’t need to be told twice.

The second they disappear around the corner, Jason whirls around to face Tim. The younger boy stares at him, barely even registering the fact that the utter fury of before has mostly melted away, replaced by concern and only a thin layer of anger humming beneath the surface. In the blink of an eye, Jason has dropped into a crouch in front of Tim, one hand on his shoulder and the other resting under his jaw, tilting his face up and thumbing at the blood trickling from his lip onto his chin. 

Jason hisses sympathetically. “Shit, kiddo, that’s gotta sting.” His gaze finishes inspecting Tim’s face and settles on his wide-blown eyes. “You okay? What happened?”

Tim can only stare. His brain is, uh… it’s kinda short-circuiting. Did Jason really— had he actually said that? And— like, did he  _ mean  _ it, or was it, like— look, just— what is going on? What the fuck just happened here?

Jason squeezes his shoulder, his brows furrowing slightly. “Timmers? You in there?”

Tim’s mouth gapes open and words fly out before he can stop them. “You… you called me your little brother.”

He almost expects Jason to flush, to take it back in a flurry of excuses and awkward laughter, but instead the boy’s brows just furrow more, confusion clouding his eyes. “I mean, yeah, that’s what you are,” Jason says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the fucking world instead of a monumental step forward. A sudden uncertainty comes over the older boy’s face. “Oh, but— I mean, if you don’t want me to call you that or think of you like that it’s totally—”

“No!” Tim cuts him off quickly, feeling a warmth building in his chest despite himself. “No, it’s okay, it’s— it’s good. It’s good. I’ve… never had some-someone like that. I’d… I want… well, I’m… it would be cool if— I want you to… uh, to be my brother, also. Too.” By the time he’s gotten the jumble of words out, Tim’s voice is little more than a mumble, and his face is flushed bright pink to the very tips of his ears as he stares determinedly at one of his books on the ground in front of him.  _ Smooth, Drake. _

But then he sees a flash of something white in his peripheral vision, and when he looks up Jason is grinning like a little kid on Christmas morning. Without another word, he reaches out and ruffles Tim’s hair, earning a mildly indignant squawk. “Alright then, it’s settled. Big brother Jason and little brother Timmy.” Tim scowls slightly at the name, but nonetheless feels the warmth strengthen in his chest. Jason’s expression softens as he thumbs once more at the drying blood, sighing heavily when Tim doesn’t bother to hide his wince of discomfort. “C’mon, Babybird. Let’s get you home.” Jason stands and straight-up pulls Tim along with him, placing him on his feet like he weighs absolutely nothing, which he kind of doesn’t. He gathers Tim’s books and papers and helps the boy shove them messily into his backpack, keeping a hand on his shoulder as they walk towards the parking lot exit.

The adrenaline has almost completely faded by the time they reach the door, various bumps and bruises slowly making themselves known, stinging and aching accompanying the slight ringing in his ears. Maybe that’s the reason Tim is too distracted to realize that they’re getting into a different car than usual. 

“Woah, what the hell? What happened?” Says a familiar voice, and Tim’s head snaps up before he can think better of it, aggravating the various bumps the lockers gave him when he slammed into them. Still though, why is Dick here? Why is he driving? Is this his car? Okay, wait, he’s got a Chevy Chevelle, that’s actually sick— wait, but what is he doing here? Why is he picking them up? How is Tim in Dick Grayson’s car? What is—

“Buncha fuckin’ assholes thought it would be fun to beat up Timbit,” Jason grumbles, lacing his hands behind his head. 

Dick’s head whips around, his eyes darker than Tim thought possible on such a happy-go-lucky person.  _ “What?”  _

Tim shrugs helplessly. “It wasn’t that bad. It’s not like it’s never happened before.”

This, apparently, was the wrong thing to say.

_ “WHAT?!”  _

Tim startles and his eyes go wide as they meet two other pairs staring back at him, filled with a caustic mixture of anger and worry.

Jason’s face is scrunched up oddly. “Tim, why didn’t you say anything?” He says, voice unnaturally pitchy. 

“I-I didn’t think it mattered that much?” Tim mumbles, eyes growing still wider as he tries to gauge their reactions. “A-and, I mean, I didn’t want you to have to pick between me and them, y’know, because you’re Robin and you have to fight for good and everything but you’ve known those boys longer, and—”

A heavy pair of hands land on his shoulders. “Tim, no,” Jason says, swallowing hard and looking like he can’t quite believe his eyes. “That’s not— those guys don’t matter at all. I don’t give a shit about them. And even if I did, nobody has the right to hurt you or make you feel like shit.” The boy takes a deep breath, squeezing Tim’s shoulders once. “You’re my little brother, right? That means you’re more important to me than any old friend ever will be. We’re partners, man, in costume and out. I look out for you just like you do for me. Would you have let someone beat  _ me _ up just because you knew them?”

_ “What?  _ No!” Tim yelps, utterly scandalized that Jason could even  _ think  _ that. “Why would I just  _ let _ someone beat you up?”

Jason nods quickly, his state piercing through Tim’s skull. “Exactly. It’s the same for me with you.”

Tim blinks. “But—”

“No buts, kiddo,” Dick cuts in, his voice warmer than usual. “Jason’s right.”

_ Since when has he called either of us  _ kiddo? Tim wonders, but he decides to table that for later.

“Vigilantes don’t just fight together when they’re in costume,” Dick continues in that strangely warm tone, and his eyes are almost…  _ softer _ than normal. “If you’re brothers, you’re brothers all the way. That’s what family means.”

Tim blinks.  _ Family? _

Family.

Huh.

That sounds… nice. 

“Oh. Right,” is all he manages, and Jason snorts and ruffles his hair, and Tim can’t help but lean into his side a little in the backseat. 

Dick smiles at them and it’s different than normal, easier, less strained. He starts the car, but instead of driving to the manor, he gets on the highway and goes downtown. He pulls into a parking spot at a little ice cream place. He buys cones for all three of them. He asks the boys about their day, and they ask about his, and it all feels… real.

The whole time, Jason grins and calls Tim  _ Babybird  _ and teases him about a million different things that don’t matter at all. And the whole time, Tim feels that same warmth growing ever stronger in his chest. 


End file.
